When I speak to Phil Nichol on the phone he is lying on a hammock in the garden of his home in South London, watching the branches of the trees dance in the sunshine.
Recently engaged, with both his parents still alive well into their nineties and considered a legend by his comedy compatriots Nichol has lots of reasons to be content.
“Aren’t We Lucky,” he says. Which is also the title of the new show he is bringing to Edinburgh.
A storytelling show, with lots of laughs and bits of music ‘Aren’t We Lucky’ weaves together the story of a close friend with leukaemia, an account of how his ten-year-old mother survived a Luftwaffe bombing raid in Glasgow and musings on the music and philosophy of Lou Reed.
Nichol plans to have a sign which tells his audience ‘You are Here’ as a backdrop.
Amazingly it has been seven years since Nichol last came to Edinburgh to do a full Fringe run.
Since then, comedy has become increasingly concerned with social media, negativity, division and cancellation. But in his travails up and down the country Nichol has discerned a new openness to positivity and hope.
‘Aren’t We Lucky’ is not a question. It’s a statement. It’s about accepting the moment you are in.’
“It’s about as far from ‘The Naked Racist’ as you can get.”
This year in Edinburgh Nichol performs both his new show ‘Aren’t We Lucky’ alongside a revival of ‘The Naked Racist’ – a howl of protest against the Iraq War which won him the Edinburgh Comedy Prize in 2006 – and which ended with Nichol and many members of his audience completely naked as an act of humanity and defiance.
Then the UK was at war with Iraq. More recently we are engaged in conflict with Iran.
“The show will be updated but we were in Iraq and now we are in Iran – so I only really have to change one letter. The nudity is about being vulnerable – but things have changed so I am going to have to make it really clear.”
The original show featured tales of the Doukhobors, a radical Russian sect who held naked peaceful protests and who emigrated en masse to Canada – where Phil spent some, but not all of his early life.
He was born in Glasgow, emigrated aged four, then moved back to Cumbernauld when he was nine – but has lived most of his life in England – so he falls between a lot of stools in terms of nationality. As a performer he has moved between musical comedy, acting, storytelling and stand up – finding radical ways to bring all of them together in his critically acclaimed shows.
Other comics can be scathing about musical comedy. “Mike Wozniak used to call my guitar my ‘cheating stick’.
And there was a time when ‘storytelling comic’ was a put down. But inspired by Owen O Neil and Dave Gorman in the nineties, Nichol embraced the idea that an Edinburgh show could be about something, could carry a narrative and convey emotion as well as prompting an audience to laughter.
He’s excited to revisit The Naked Racist – which centres around a mushroom inspired meltdown in Amsterdam which led to him accidentally blurting out a racist term. For the new version he plans to find a way to tell the story without explicitly using the word in question.
Attitudes to language and attitudes to nakedness shift through time – but as a touring comic Nichol is alert to the subtle changes which underlie the zeitgeist.
“Offense was one of the themes of the noughties – but sometimes if you fight something you are in danger of becoming it.
“If you fight people like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson with the same energy you are in danger of becoming like them.”
Fans of Nichol will know his shows are exhilarating, rollercoaster rides of energy and emotion – packed with thrills and idiocy and bursting with ideas. Those who are new to his work are in for a treat.
So far preview audiences have been loving ‘Aren’t We Lucky’ – with older and younger audience members all responding to its upbeat vision of the world.
“The story is about you and me being in the moment, being here. Being present. It’s an existential show, told through stories.
“If you can just taste and enjoy the coffee – whatever pain and loss you’ve been through.”
He hopes, and so far the signs are good, that it is a show which will stay with people long after they have left the Gilded Balloon and the Fringe is over.
“I’d like them to be on a beach in the Philippines and to remember the show and say: “Aren’t We Lucky.”
Phil Nichol: Aren’t We Lucky, August 5 – 30, Lounge At Gilded Balloon, 17.30
Phil Nichol: The Naked Racist, August 5 – 18, Wine Bar At Gilded Balloon, 21.45
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/phil-nichol-aren-t-we-lucky
