Funny Talk: Phil Kay

Part Billy Connolly, part Spike Milligan, with maybe just a tint of Jerry Sadowitz, Phil Kay first came to notice after winning the newcomer’s So You Think You’re Funny? competition at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe way back in 1989.

And he’s been weaving his own unpredictable-verging-on-crazy path ever since.

Having already stormed the Bray Comedy Festival last year – something the Scottish comedian has a habit of doing, from Nova Scotia to Adelaide and beyond – Kay returns to our neck of the woods on Thursday, December 5th, when he co-headlines the monthly Hardy Har Comedy Club alongside Deirdre O’Kane.

“Back in 1989, when I won the So You Think You’re Funny? competition, my ideas were small,” says Kay. “Now, I talk about my life, and back in 2002, at Vicar Street, that resulted in a three-hour, eleven-minute show that ended with a Jameson’s blackout and me falling off the stage…”

Something of a regular treat at The Hardy Har Club in Bray, we managed to pin young Kay down so he could reveal his comic inspirations, but not before explaining how the hell he got into this ridiculous line of work in the first place…

Aged nine, I stole a line from Abbot & Costello… “What are you doing down there?”… “I’m GETTING up!”.
Now, that went well with my step-father and it seemed humour was – gulp – the transference of a mind’s idea to another mind using language and sight-specific interplay and yours was the choice of how intelligent a version you choose to choose as your choice…

So… Laurel & Hardy films got me because Stan is so modern and clowny and BrrrilllIant…

Growing up more, it was then my friend, Al, who came to school with Monty Python books… Everyone else learned to quote them and I just sat with a wry smile… knowing full well you can only go so far with others’ words.

Then it was school friends and magic mushrooms, and all the rest of the school away at a rugby match, and us meeting the headmaster and tripping, and giggling, and wooohooooo… Authority plus hallucinogens equals plus.

Then it was Andrew Clover, as a friend who allowed positivity to be crucial enough, then it was older friend, Barry the Gay waiter, and Ian the Un-Gay waiter, at The Waterfront restaurant in Edinburgh City. Then I did it and was inspired by Karen Koren drinking pink champagnes and providing a venue where I saw Sean Hughes, and Arthur Smith, and Malcolm Hardy. Corky & The Juice Pigs were the best live act ever. And everer.


And then, John Hegley actually dancing, Mark Lamaar smoking and talking with the crowd, and Jo Brand, so wise and kind, and Alan Davies and Rich Hall in Canada…

Andy Kindler, the American, and Jimeoin, the gentlest numbskull who just had to burn the negatives on my camera.

And then Eddie Izzard had me do ten minutes before him at the 2,000-seater Edinburgh Playhouse, aged 22, and that inspired the shit out of me.

Kitson sent an audience member to Barcelona from a whip round…

And Glenn Wool doing a striptease, and David McSavage on the streets. Wow, man, the list is endless…

You can catch Phil Kay at Bray’s Hardy Har Club – upstairs in The Harbour Bar – every other year. Or thereabouts. More info on de oul’ Facebook page right here.