Stand-up Scott Bennett addresses the art of parenting​​​​​​​

“It still feels a strange time because basically the tour has spanned the whole of Covid,” Scott says. “And we've had such odd things happening in the country. We had the Covid pandemic and then we had the cost of living crisis and it feels like the show has morphed through various moments of misery.

"But a lot of the emphasis in the show is on the sheer value of comedy and just how important comedy is. And I think we've realised that more and more since the pandemic. It feels to me like comedians have become the new key workers because we all need a little bit of escapism at the moment, more than ever. The show also talks about my parenting and how we navigated through those pandemic periods but as I say it's also a reflection on the value of comedy and how we all need to get together and be together and how we all have this quest to escape.

“The show is about me. It's a lot about my feelings and I guess I'm right at the centre of it. I've got two children. I've got a seven-year-old and a 13-year-old and they're both girls and it's about trying to balance their world and to understand the world that they are going through. The difficulty is that they're growing up in a world which is not the world that we grew up in. We are trying to separate ourselves from our devices and from technology but it's also about worrying about the dangers that they bring. It feels to me like the issue is that we don't know what the issues are. When I was at home with my mum and dad they would say to me ‘Don't go to that part of town because it's dangerous’ but when you have got your children on their devices it's difficult to say ‘Don't do Instagram because it's dangerous’ or ‘Don't do this social media because you don't know where it's going to lead.’ I suppose we're just trying to give them the tools to go forward.

"I think the really important thing is just to have an open dialogue with your children. It feels like the role of parents has changed. We are like social workers now. Parents have to be real chameleons now and have to be incredibly adaptable to do all the things that parents need to do now. So lot of the show is about the frustration of trying to be a parent in this modern world and the changes that there are.”

But Scott is happy to say that his family is doing pretty well: “I think we would be doing a lot worse if it wasn’t for my wife. She is very, very good. She is the steady ship. I'm a bit more chaotic and a bit more neurotic. I can't relax and I can't really switch off very well so I'm incredibly thankful to Gemma for being the front of house in our relationship. I talk about the fact that Gemma is the acceptable face of the Bennett partnership and I know how lucky I am that I have got her.”