Jason Cook – Broken, Crown Hotel, Harrogate, October 13

Without making any over-dramatic connection, in a week when the death of Robin Williams has reminded us how the life of a joker is often no laughing matter, the school-of-hard-knocks comic from the North East is revealing his own struggles in Broken at the Edinburgh Fringe at 5.40pm each evening in the Pleasance Dome, tonight until Sunday with further shows from Tuesday to next Sunday.

An autumn tour will follow, bringing him to the Crown Hotel in Harrogate in a Harrogate Theatre promotion on October 13.

He may have won the Best Drama award for his BBC2 series Hebburn at the Royal Television Awards, but that show was at the root of his problems, for all the presence of Vic Reeves, Gina McKee, Kimberley Nixon and Chris Ramsey alongside Jason in the cast.

"A lot of the stress with Hebburn was that there hadn't been a Geordie sitcom for 25 years, and then you make one and you realise why," says Jason, with disarming honesty. "I slept for only three hours a night for three years, which sends you a bit crackers.

"That weight of expectation on you is heavy, with people saying, 'You do realise the pride of the region is resting on you?'. It's different in a live show when it's just you and the audience in the room, but with TV people are straight on to Twitter, and oddly it's changed my view [on social media].

"Just once I responded, when this guy said, 'Hebburn is the worst thing I've seen. No offence.' 'No offence?', I replied, and he wrote back, 'That means you are not to be offended'." Ouch.

Jason hit the floor last December.

"There was a day I just stopped. I just sat down and stopped. I'd kept it together until we'd finished the edit for the second series of Hebburn, and my brain then allowed me to stop... for an extensive break," he says.

"I was exhausted. My doctor said I needed time off, and my wife, who's a psychologist, said I needed to see a therapist because she's not good at dealing with it herself. 'I don't think I should be the one you talk to,' she said."

The way Jason recalls these events, humour is never far away, no matter how deeply he was troubled. "I've just had to approach it like it was work;" he says. "It's graft, and by therapist number seven..."

...Seven therapists? He wasn't joking.

"The first one sacked me because I saw an opportunity for a joke, and he said, 'Why are you here?', so I strung him along for a few minutes, and by the time I got home, I'd been sent an email, straight after the session, saying 'I don't think this is going to work for you' as he didn't think I was taking it seriously."

Jason's latest therapist knows material from his sessions will be used in the show. "She's fine with it," he says.

How is Jason feeling now? "I'm great. It's so luxurious doing therapy. It's like having a massage on the brain, and you can 'proper whinge' without being asked to leave the room," he says.

In turn, he has turned this therapy into a frank and fearless show. "What I've found out is that though I've made jokes about it, the reason I'm doing Broken is because it's interesting to have an audience laughing and being engaged by a subject when it's got a bit of a taboo about it," he says.

"In the 20 shows I've done before this interview [on July 24], I've asked at each one if anyone is in therapy and no one out of 1,000 people has said 'Yes', because there's a stigma about it, so that's why it's interesting."

In Broken, Jason discusses how his work, family and comedy have all conspired to create a shell of a man who is unable to interact in society without being told exactly what to do. Despite this, he keeps searching for the joy of life and uses the trials and tribulations to strive to turn his life into a richer and happier one.

"My shows have always been honest about talking about things of that nature, so I don't think any more about being so honest. I like to talk about what's happened to me, and hopefully people will go, 'Oh, I do that too'.

"So this time it's a show about the cost of things, the stress and the anxiety and how I try to combat those things – that's why I'm on my seventh therapist – but there's not a mental health message. It's just me talking about what I've been through and making jokes about, and being covered in sweat by the end."

Broken also explores change and how we might resist it with the evolution of life being the key to eternal happiness. This evolution requires him to deal with the blow of Hebburn not being granted a third series, despite transferring to Canada, Australia and all over Europe and being sold to Happy Madison Productions for development in America for ABC.

"The decision to axe it was taken high above," says Jason, who has responded in a positive manner.

"I've got seven script ideas for television series that I'm working on at the moment and a film in the full treatment stage with a film company looking at it," he says. "It's a British film with American actors; a very dark comedy that came from an idea I had for a sitcom."

All proof that Jason Cook is Broken but unbowed.

Jason Cook – Broken, Crown Hotel, Harrogate, October 13. Box office: 01423 502116 or at harrogatetheatre.co.uk