Nurse Blake Has Seen It All (And Wants to Make You Laugh About It)

With his boyish smile and sweet looks, Nurse Blake may cause your blood pressure to rise a point or two. No worries, though, the 33-year-old Orlando native is there to do what nurses do best: Put you at ease and show you care. Except not in the confines of a medical establishment, but on a stage where this viral (no pun intended) phenomenon plans on making you laugh as well on his "The Shock Advised Tour," which kicks off on September 28 and runs through December 5. (For a complete list of dates, follow this link.

But there is more to Nurse Blake (a.k.a. Blake Lynch) than making you laugh. As the New York Times puts it, "Nurse Blake's boyish smile and peppy spirit hide a bulky chip on his shoulder, one his comedy wields like a weapon against the medical establishment." While according to Gallup, nursing is the most respected profession in the country, Blake feels they don't get the respect they deserve; and in his humor, he is their biggest advocate.

He came from a family of medical professionals. Upon graduating high school, when his peers were making trips to Europe, he enrolled in pre-requisite courses for nursing school. He became one in 2014, and has worked in all aspects of his profession, but when he began having panic attacks, he knew something was amiss. He began posting videos about his life and career, which caught on with many of his fellow nurses, as well as the public at large, and led to speaking engagements in medical circles. Next came his own act in which, he points out, he can say the word "fuck," and an edgier act was born. Blake quit being a nurse full time in 2019 to focus on performing; but he keeps close contact with those in the profession, and incorporates their observations, some forbidden by their employers, to be heard.

He continued through the pandemic, but told the Times his videos became rawer and edgier during the crisis.

Blake says "nurses have the darkest sense of humor," and they use it as a defense mechanism to get through long 18-hour shifts and deal with the constant awareness of crisis and death. "We need humor to get through it," he notes. In his upcoming show, he tells his life story, from his early dedication to become a nurse, through three years of conversion therapy when his parents learned he was gay as a teenager. He touches on his nursing school experiences, and his years working in the medical trenches, as well as being married and recently divorced.

EDGE spoke to Blake about finding comedy in health care, what to expect from his show, and which hot TV doctor he would like to work with.

Introduction by Robert Nesti

EDGE: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Nurse Blake: I'm a gay nurse from Orlando. I went into nursing ten years ago, and never thought I'd do comedy. It just happened over the past few years. You don't have comedy classes when you're in nursing school. For me, it's happened naturally and organically.

EDGE: From your passion for people came the inspiration to become a nurse.

Nurse Blake: It did. I never considered any other profession. My mom is in medical device sales, and my dad is a respiratory therapist. He has worked the night shift for as long as I have been alive. I remember in the mornings when I would get up and go to school, he'd be coming home from work in his lab coat and stethoscope, and he'd tell me these crazy patient stories about what happened, or how he was able to save someone's life. That experience, and his stories, inspired me, so I joined the health academy in high school. The summer after high school, I didn't go to Europe to find myself; I started my prerequisites for nursing school.

EDGE: How did the transition from nurse to comedian happen?

Nurse Blake: Nurses are probably some of the funniest people out there. We're also some of the most dark-humored individuals, because we experience life and death daily. Our shifts are sometimes between 12 and 16 hours per day, and we have to use humor to get through it.

For me, it was a pretty natural progression. I started in 2017 by making funny videos that would go viral. They helped me get through a hard time in nursing, when I was experiencing some anxiety and a little bit of depression. Then I realized my videos were assisting other nurses and nursing students. After gaining a little notoriety, I would get invited to speak and present at hospitals or nursing schools, which was great fun, but I couldn't say "fuck." I couldn't tell the jokes that I performed during my videos. That is when I decided to do my own show. It was going to be raw and unfiltered.

In 2019, I rented out five small theaters around the country and sold tickets on Eventbrite for 15 bucks. The shows sold out! So, last year, I did over a hundred shows. Seeing nurses of all ages and backgrounds attend the show has been amazing. A lot of people think it's just younger nurses, but it is nursing students to retired nurses in their eighties attending. It is so wonderful to see the diversity in the crowd. It has definitely become more than a comedy show.