Forget the funny, neurodiversity seems to be the must-have attribute in a comic's Fringe blurb – Kate Copstick

According to most recent research, 20 per cent of the world is now neurodivergent. Seems fair..

However, should you narrow the parameters of your search to Edinburgh Fringe Comedy, the percentage has been increasing exponentially for a few years.

In many ways, in that, the Fringe is a microcosm of society in general. Just with much higher rents and more attention seeking.

It seems antithetical to the popular image of people on 'the spectrum' that they should be drawn to stand-up comedy as a career.

But as Miss Mazeppa and Tessie Tura so persuasively told us in song, “you gotta get a gimmick” and ever since the first Dead Dad Show took the Fringe by storm, comics have been been hanging their Edinburgh hours on any personal misfortune or foible, difference or diagnosis out of which they can squeeze their stars. “What happened to funny?” I hear you cry. And I feel your pain. But it seems that for many, the vast empty spaces of an onstage hour to fill, combined with the need to be more interesting than the next 1500 shows, means that 'fascinating', 'brave', and 'searingly honest' are becoming as much a hallmark of an Edinburgh show as 'hilarious'.

Please do not think I am talking about all shows in those categories. When you see the real thing, it is something wonderful. Richard Gadd's first show was sore to watch, but extraordinary. Reg Hunter's White Woman was breathtaking and hilarious. There was barely a racial taboo left standing at the end. Scott Capurro's shows were out and proud gaydom, red in tooth and claw, when queer was still an insult. Rob Auton and Twonkey and Mark Dean Quinn are all frequently incomprehensible, but glorious in their own ways.

Of course there are fashions in comedy, like everything else. I rather liked it when comedy was angry and political and took no prisoners. When it did something. Now it seems … chronically introspective. And few people have really funny insides.

Diagnosis of the Day in the comedy section, this August at least, seems to be “on the spectrum”.

Mathematics was never my best subject, but even I can see that when a critical mass of comics at the Fringe declare themselves to be neurodiverse, then neurodiversity surely becomes the norm.

And what was only even named in 1998 is now the must-have attribute in a comic's Fringe blurb.

This is not directed at anyone who is any kind of diverse in any way. It is quite simply a fact that I am not sufficiently interested in most people to listen to them bang on about themselves for an hour out of my life unless they have the talent to do so brilliantly. Too many of them just don't. And I resent being pushed to feel obliged to like something more because the promotional bumf starts “At the age of 23, having always felt 'different', Wee Jeanie Beastie was finally diagnosed with INSERT ACRONYMIC DISORDER HERE.” And, as I say, the Wee Jeannie Beasties of the comedy world are getting less and less “different”.

Those who hit the buzzword jackpot are the (increasingly diagnosed) performers who are both neurodivergent and non-binary. Research done at Cambridge University showed that people on the autism spectrum are three to six times more likely to identify as trans.

The journey from 'I feel like I don't fit in and this makes me unhappy and afraid' to ' now I understand my differences and I am happy with them' is a hugely important one, but somehow increasing numbers of those drawn to comedy in the standing up position seem to bypass that stop and go on to 'I am now incredibly proud of my difference and will take your money to show it off and talk at you about it for an hour'. That makes me identify as irritated.

Is this very old-fashioned Scottish of me?

One worry about both situations is the acceptance of self-identification. Those who 'stood with Nicola', of course, were and are all for it, in terms of gender. A kind of modern day Descartes version of gender - “I feel, therefore I am”.

Having said which, I read recently that one of the Kardashians – I find it impossible to tell them apart, and a waste of time and energy to try - identifies as 'autosexual'. Which means her primary sexual attraction is to herself. While unsurprised, I am also despairing. Is this what we have come down to? But I digress ...

Already we have reached the stage where people are self-diagnosing themselves as neurodivergent. I shall not name her, but one really rather excellent stand up has recently decided she must be neurodiverse. She is fascinating, quirky and gifted as a communicator, and her 'funny' is unique. But to pathologise that is surely demeaning it.

You only need to brush with Google (other search engines are available) to find assertions in all manner of publications, that, given we have accepted there is a spectrum, we are all neurodiverse to a greater or lesser extent. Maybe just not divergent enough to make an Edinburgh hour out of it.

But as I mentioned earlier, the sheer number of performers heading here this August with their diagnoses and stories of adversity through diversity is becoming overwhelming. To say nothing of numerically heading towards the norm.

When I look for wisdom, I frequently find it in the writings of WS Gilbert. And he has not let me down here as, in The Gondoliers, Don Alhambra reminds us that “when everyone is somebodeee, then no one's anybodeee”.