There is no more uproarious opening sequence at this year’s fringe than Phil Ellis’s. Yes, it’s really happening: he really is dressed in a slinky black bodysuit, throwing wild shapes among the crowd while caterwauling along to Jellicle Cats. Everything about Ellis’s Excellent Comedy Show dials up the silly and incongruous to 11, as the Manchester man tries on as many comedy styles as can be crammed into a fringe hour. Observational, improvised rap, heart-on-sleeve “traumedy” – it’s all here, and the joke, usually, is that Ellis is crap at all of it.
Sometimes, that serves as an excuse for actually being a bit crap – and that’s not always redeemed by Ellis snorting derisively throughout at the shabbiness of the wares on offer. The conceit of a shambolic sad-sack winging it in comedy is belied, too, by Ellis’s successful Radio 4 sitcom and nomination this week for the Edinburgh comedy award (whose panel prize he won in 2014 with the chaotic kids’ show Funz and Gamez). But there’s no denying the 41-year-old has found another entertainingly helter-skelter format for his shtick here, as he teams up with his two-piece band (Cammy Sinclair and Cammy Phair), splicing the boisterous-but-blighted gags with high-kicking pop classics by Elton John, David Bowie and Petula Clark.
