At Knock2Bag

February 2010

More Phil Kay videos

Phil Kay burst on to the comedy circuit in 1989, when he won the new act contest So You Think You're Funny in only its second year.

His unpredictable, freestyle approach won him a Perrier nomination in 1993 and the award for best stand-up at the 1994 British Comedy Awards, and he was given his own Channel 4 show, Phil Kay Feels..., in 1997, which was recorded in front of a live audience to try to capture his manic energy

However, the showcase failed to make him a star and, aside from the occasional panel game appearance, his career is now limited mainly to shows at Edinburgh and other festivals.

He has recently started hosting kids’ shows on the festival scene, where his silly style has proved popular with the younger audience.

London Storytelling Festival 2011 Closing Gala
Live Review
Leicester Square Theatre

Storytelling can sometimes be seen as comedy’s fey, bookish older brother, brooding alone in the corner as his more popular, charismatic sibling gets all the attention for his ribald tales in the centre of the room. It’s all vacuous showboating, Storytelling mutters, while quietly wishing it was him in the spotlight.

The London Storytelling Festival is the latest of several attempts to make the art more relevant, even if the closing night gala wasn’t helped by a wordy preamble from hosts Sarah Bennetto and Deborah Francis-White about how it’s ‘the oldest artform’, ‘the way we communicate’ and how ‘made me understand who I was, my place in the world and my very existence’.

Thankfully, once the show got busy with the ‘Once upon a times…’ such worthy pretentiousness was largely jettisoned, and the stories were allowed to shine on their own merits.

Opening act Martin Dockery certainly showed how to spin even the most common occurrence into a gripping yarn – a trick the best stand-ups display. This vibrant New Yorker told of a fight with his long-term girlfriend amid the majesty of a Cambodian temple. Delivered with verve and told with wit and insight, he is so engaging and evocative he makes the audience believe they are sharing the sunrise – and the argument – with him.

From the experienced to the novice, with journalist Will Hodgkinson choosing the Leicester Square Theatre for his first try at live storytelling. He’s normally a rock journalist, but here he mulled the idea of tattoos, telling us a factual story about the symbolism of tattoos among the Russian prison population that didn’t always make for easy listening. The delivery occasionally needed a bit of polish, but this was an assured offering on a tough subject.

Phil Kay’s been doing storytelling in his stand-up since before it was recognised as a sub-genre of the current scene. From the profundity of Hodgkinson’s tale, troubadour Kay brought us back to the apparently trivial, regaling us with a tale of hitchhiking across Scotland to buy a car. It’s Kay’s knack for exaggerating minor observations into whole philosophies that makes this relatively minor errand so gripping, and he left us on a high.

For her own story, Francis-White – the comedian who also produced this festival – revealed that she was brought up a Jehovah’s Witness. Thankfully, this whole event wasn’t a ploy for her to sell us copies of the Watchtower, as she’s now reformed, but as a youngster she used to knock on strangers’ doors spreading the word. And should you question the wisdom of sending a teenage girl to do that, your fears will be realised with Francis-White’s yarn. Yet although there’s a menace to the tale , and she tells it with a lightness of touch – while the subject holds an intrinsic fascination because it’s so different to common experiences.

Singer-songwriter Judith Owen was in more clichéd territory when speaking of Los Angeles, where she now lives, being fake and full of desperate would-be stars. She brought out her husband, Simpsons actor Harry Shearer, to accompany her on bass guitar for the ensuing song – although ironically enough for someone known for his voice talents, he wasn’t allowed to speak. At least not yet. Owen has a fine jazz voice, but unimaginative lyrics, which is surely key in a storytelling night. In car-dependent Southern California, it’s not often you find ‘LA’ and ‘pedestrian’ in the same sentence, but it’s probably apt here.

Sarah Bennetto, the festival’s artistic director and curator of her own regular Storytellers’ Club, opening the second half with a yarn that made attending an Arcade Fire gig sond almost as magical and adventurous as a trip to Narnia. Though a comedian, the anecdote wasn’t entertaining rather than funny, but it was warmly told.

Next up was Mark Thomas, who was nothing short of astounding. After a couple of jokey reminiscences about the early days of alternative cabaret, he started telling us about his dad – a full-on rough, but hard-grafting working-class Methodist, Thatcherite builder from South London – and the difficult relationship he has with him. This has been a fertile ground for comics of late, most notably Russell Kane, but it’s never been covered as expertly as this. This powerful story was packed full of emotion, taking the audience on an incredible ride through the decades and, more significantly, the contradictory, complex feelings he had for this brusque character.

Always surprising as it deftly nipped between the moving and the funnys this was a ride that left the audience drained in the best possible way, having come through an amazing tale. Absolutely superlative stuff.

The story ended with a moral about joys money can’t buy, so it was rather unfortunate that Owen was reintroduced with the words: ‘And after the show she will be autographing CDs – if you buy them, of course.’ That Simpsons pay settlement must have hit the Shearer household harder than reported. Again, her contribution, setting up a song about women waiting ashore for their sea-faring men amid dreadful storms, was platitudinous (‘inside all of us is something that means the worst possible things can be turned around’) and the track itself soporific.

To headline, hubby Shearer returned, but despite his fame was, unfortunately, one of the weaker links in the line-up, with stories that were low on drama – and strong endings. Being taken to a Tijuana strip club was rather flat, and the story of submitting a lightweight lifestyle piece to Newsweek magazine in his youth only to find the introduction had been twisted to suit the publication’s agenda will come as no surprise in the nation that brought us the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Sun, News Of The World, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Sport….

But that Mark Thomas, he was fantastic.

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Saw Phil as part of a line-up at Udderbelly in April 11. He came on in high spirits, running into the crowd and chatting to the audience, but then started being quite aggressive and rambling on about how the monarchy had done nothing for Scotland (it was the day of the Royal wedding). He then flashed his cock, said the organisers were stupid for paying him in advance and after calling everyone in the audience a c*nt, walked out after two minutes. Most people did start laughing then at least.

mark, April 2011

I went to see him last night at the Brook Green Hotel, Shepherds Bush. Anyone who finds watching an aggressive pissed tramp rambling nonsense before pulling down their pants in the desperate hope of getting a laugh should definitely go and see him. He was taken off early. Those that didn't leave only stayed out of fear inspired by the aggression of his mental institution persona. Calling him a comedian is the height of irony.

Sloth, May 2010

I went to see him last night at the Brook Green Hotel, Shepherds Bush. Anyone who finds watching an aggressive pissed tramp rambling nonsense before pulling down their pants in the desperate hope of getting a laugh should definitely go and see him. He was taken off early. Those that didn't leave only stayed out of fear inspired by the aggression of his mental institution persona. Calling him a comedian is the height of irony.

Sloth, May 2010

Saw Phil last night in Sevenoaks.What planet does he live on, most of the audience walked out, pathetic. Even when he was offered a life line to come off, just carried on & more people left. Sadly this isn't comedy for me

David, April 2010

I like unusual and thoughtful comedy. I can also go with "safe and simple" comedy. Perhaps my link between the two is the word "comedy". A man standing on the stage rambling and chucking crockery at people, is not the best comedy I have seen, though Circus Clowns and slapstick never did it for me. If you like car crash comedy, and manipulative confrontation then Phil is your man.

Sean Brickell, January 2010

Brilliant, exhilarating, original, face-hurting comedy. A real one-off. Recommended to fans of Sean Lock, Bill Bailey, Rich Hall, etc., but not to people who like it safe and simple.

Alfred Bettle, January 2010

Saw Phil on Saturday and it was the funniest 40 minutes of stand-up I have ever been witness to. Phil is a genius.

Debbie, November 2009

Saw Phil Kay on 14 November. His Ryanair stuff was very amusing - but that was all he had I am afraid. However the rest of the show was truly awful. He attempts an ambitious form of stream of consciousness ravings - some scripted and some new comments picked up from his surroundings - however the material is just not very funny - and while the style was innovative, the delivery is extremely poor. The words were rattled off so fast - the concepts were not understood - there was no ebb and flow to give time to the audience to catch up with his mind wanderings - he simply lost the bulk of the audience who tried hard to keep up with him - but had trouble with his impenetrable delivery. Then as his act moved on he moved from just poor humour into disaster. When he tried the archetypal comedy club engagement with audience members, his style was simply insulting - again with little actual humour - the laughter as he put people down was for the shock- jock of the gibe rather than at the actual humour that the jibe contained. When the audience then reacted to his delivery and jibes - he became even more insulting and aggressive - diving into the audience and confronting even minor heckles with personal face to face confrontation - it seemed to be part of his act. Not to be recommended for any audience - except the far reaches of avant garde shock-jock humour events - he may have talent - but he does a super job of hiding it

Phil Withers, November 2009

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