By Nick A. Zaino III Globe correspondent,Updated August 13, 2025
On a hot July night in Lynn, Liam McGurk is headlining in a former bank-turned-theater. He’s warmed the crowd up with self-deprecating jokes about his persistently almost-closed eyes and a voice that makes him sound like he has a favorite flavor of aerosol can. How he likes the feeling of a Q-Tip in his ears perhaps a bit too much. About his predilection for dating older women.
McGurk, who grew up in Acton,is charming, and most of the crowd is with him and laughing. This is how it has been for much of the 34-year-old comic’s career. Then he talks about how it’s nice to be out in public after spending time in a psych hospital: “Look at us, wearing belts!”
The laughter is a bit nervous, but it grows as McGurk talks about how maybe he shouldn’t have scheduled a date three days after he was released. How his potential mate found the grippy socks he kept lying around his apartment. And he defends the decision to keep the gown from the hospital— he only did it because he likes his space on the train.
This is the part that’s different. McGurk has always been funny. Now, he’s digging deeper and talking about the parts of his life that make him nervous. “Over this year and last year, there’s been like, a huge change in me, as corny as that sounds,” he said, speaking backstage after the show. “People say like, ‘I’ve been working on myself.’ I used to say that, and it didn’t really mean anything. But I have hours and hours every week of like, different sorts of therapy and recovery stuff.”