Angry Londoners

From Nearly Gay / The Naked Racist

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2010:Nominated for best headliner in the Chortle Awards. 2007: Nominated for best headliner in the Chortle Awards 2006: Appeared as the producer in Rob Brydon's BBC Three series Annually Retentive 2005: Appeared in BBC Two's Broken News, as camp showbiz reporter Josh Cashman on this BBC2 spoof 2003: Chortle Award nominee for best headliner 2002: Nominated for the Perrier for his Edinburgh show: Things I Like, I Lick 2002: Chortle award nominee for best male circuit comic 2002: Appeared as Philip Salon in the Boy George musical Taboo in the West End

Phil Nichol: The Simple Hour
Live Review

It's a sold out show, yet around a dozen seats are still empty - what do you do? Most comics would kick on and start the show, but Phil Nichol isn't most comics.

After a thoughtful consultation with his audience, it seems the decent thing to do is wait five more minutes for people who have been held up. Yet the audience still want to be entertained. So Nichol proceeds to break at least three golden rules of comedy, by giving over the mike to punter Tarquin Delaney, who had the temerity to request Only Gay Eskimo. Delaney takes the stage, Nichol takes a place in the audience… so when latecomers turn up, they must wonder what madness this is. The answer is it's Phil Nichol's madness.

Is there another comic who would stop a show when heckled about the origin of the Mah Nà Mah Nà song - and get away with it? Having argued with almost every member of the audience, Nichol insisted people get their phones out to find whether it was actually first used on Sesame Street or The Muppets. When Nichol is proved right, he jubilantly straddles chairs in the front row shouting joyous profanities to the audience in celebration.

His Simple Hour is clearly not suitable for his Born Again Christian parents, although that was his aim. Simple it maybe in name, but it is expertly delivered and perfectly timed. True, a small part of his material has been reprised from previous shows but you can't hold Nichol to a higher standard than other performers, and he's already won the highest award Edinburgh can bestow.

We return a couple of times to Nichol's trusty guitar, which is some of the best playing seen at the festival. He finally delivers his oft requested Only Gay Eskimo; while his final song contains so much trademark Nichol intensity that he breaks a string, but still finishes his performance.

The simple truth is that Nichol is at his best when acting, either delivering stunning stories like Nearly Gay or The Naked Racist, or in more pronounced characters such as the dead poet Bobby Spade. But even as himself, he still bests most other comics and gives audiences huge laughter for their money. The Simple Hour is very funny hour of madness, mayhem and magic, as only Nichol has mastered.

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Just got back from seeing Phil at The Comedy Store. Brilliant. Had the whole audience shrieking with laughter, got a member of the audience up to sing a song with him, and had the rest of us (British people!) singing along with gusto. Loved it.

Rosie, November 2011

Phil Nichol is the man. He's funny, exciting, awesome, and doesn't give a f**k. He rocks the stage like no other. You need to see him to believe it.

Swamp Thing, January 2011

Gigged for me at the weekend in Newcastle, encored Friday after following Reg D Hunter and Steve Hughes who dropped in to try some new bits, was encored twice with a very different set on Saturday... think they could have listened for another hour if the venue wasn't closing for the night... made a mass of fans this weekend and can't wait to get him back

John S, November 2010

Saw Phil Nichol doing work-in-progress in Greenwich on Sunday. I was exhausted by the end of it, and not in a good way. He was projecting a lot of anxiety and tension into the audience and it made for a very unenjoyable evening. The only laugh he got was when he dealt with a mildly amusing heckler by humiliating her in a rather aggressive and uncreative way. Charisma and charm was sadly lacking.

Oe, June 2010

What Zach Galifianakis does with ease and a welcome of laughter, Nichol expends sweat and blood trying to mine one titter from. Nichol's biggest fan is very obviously Phil Nichol and this alienates the audience almost as soon as he gets on the stage. He's missing that particular MSG that made look-at-me-ism palatable in the acts of Robin Williams and Steve Martin. Grim, with a very obvious contempt for his audience.

Mandy Allan, January 2010

Lawks-a-Lawdy. Saw this clown last night. I can't even describe how bad this guy is. Not just bad - but criminally bad. Cringe-worthy bad. So bad it makes you want to hit people.

Jamie Baxter, August 2009

I've seen Phil on and off over the last few years I guess 10 times and last night I just didn't enjoy his new show, I'm not saying it's no good, just it's very different from the stuff he normally does and just didnt work for me.

Chris, July 2009

Saw his new stuff for Edinburgh and it he looks like a man trying too hard to be funny to me.

David, July 2009

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