“They fuck you up, your mum and dad,” is the beginning of the Philip Larkin poem Phil Ellis has taken as the starting point for his Edinburgh show.

 

After years of messing around with the form of comedy Phil has decided to create a show with heart and to reveal more of his real life on stage.

 

We find out a lot about Phil Ellis during this show.  We meet his mum and dad, his granny and we find out lots about his childhood in Preston.

 

Ellis shares family photographs, remembers childhood memories and childhood myths and gives us some psychological insights into his early life.

 

Of course there is a lot of messing about as well.  There are pranks, pratfalls and surprise guests – and even the stand up segments have subtitles – dividing them into different sub-genres of comedy.

 

So we see Phil venturing into subjects that are ‘edgy’.  He has a go at doing a bit of ‘sexy’ stand up.  And he drops a couple of heavy cultural references to show us he can do ‘intellectual’ comedy as well.  The ‘imposter syndrome’ section features a hilarious account of the annual post Fringe comedown.

 

There’s a bit of faffing about between the segments of the show.  It’s not clear whether this is a meta comment on ‘ill-prepared’ comedy or it’s just genuine exhaustion.  (He has just spent two weeks being pelted with sweets by kids while dressed as a pirate for his kids show Funz and Gamez).

 

But you don’t come to see Phil Ellis expecting a slick hour of comedy. There’s always a certain amount of pandemonium going on.

 

What Ellis can do consistently, is land some huge laughs, with absurd juxtapositions of ideas and superb physical idiocy.  If you cut him in half, you’d probably find the word ‘comedy’ written through him like a stick of Blackpool rock.

 

His crowdwork is ludicrously quick – and you see him conjure big laughs out of the most bizarre exchanges.  At one point he pauses to congratulate a woman on the front row on her knees. He stops for a chat with a man on the second row about the difficulty of cremating a pet.

 

Despite endless digressions, and although you sometimes doubt it, there is a proper theme to this show and Phil returns again and again through faded photographs, silly stories and nostalgia to his home, his family, his childhood and his mum and dad.

 

And there’s a reason he’s feeling so emotional this year.   There’s a surge of recognition as the audience understands this show is a real labour of love.

 

He ends with a rousing song – accompanied by a tremendously grim slide-show of the highlights of Preston. It’s funny, clever, sad and beautiful all at the same time.  At the end the applause just goes on and on.

 

 

 

 

Picture by: Michael Mannion.