My Festival: Phil Nichol

Phil Nichol won the Edinburgh award in 2006. Picture: Steve Ullathorne

I only have time to see one show in Edinburgh. Why should I go to yours?Why the hell not? You’re reading this interview so just take a chance. Maybe you’ve heard of me but have never seen me before? Now’s the perfect time to rectify that. Or maybe you know me, Phil Nichol, madman of the Fringe, who won the Edinburgh Award in 2006 and always puts on a fun show. Also, I’ll give you your money back if you don’t enjoy it.

Now that I think of it, I’ve got time to see two. What else should I definitely go to?Take the programme, close your eyes, open it to any random page and put your finger down. Open your eyes. Go and see whatever your finger has chosen. It might be brilliant, it might not. But it will be fun. Or you could come watch Tony Law and I in our deliciously transgressive hour, Virtue Chamber Echo Bravo, a silly-surreal look at social expectations. Be brave.

What are the best and worst things that have happened to you at the Edinburgh Festival?Best – having my Glaswegian father, Iain, guide me from Canada, using FaceTime, to the exact spot on Arthur’s Seat where he proposed to my 90-year-old mother, Ethel, 62 years ago. What a wild sensation to share that with my folks. Without that spot I wouldn’t be here.Worst – being chucked out of our flat by an ex-girlfriend on the first day of the Festival. Bad month.

What’s your favourite place in the city and why?I’m performing at Monkey Barrel Comedy on Blair St. The line-up this year is mind-bogglingly great. It’s a local business too. Drop in and support them in their endeavour to bring laughter to Edinburgh all year round.

Who do you like spending time with at the Festival?My lovely long-suffering partner. We both will need emotional support and give emotional support in equal measure. I also have old friends that I only really see at the Fringe.

Where can I find you at 9am, 9pm and 2am?9am? Asleep, I hope. 9pm? The Monkey Barrel 4 performing my solo show, Too Much. 2am? Trying to go home as I’m co-starring in a Eugene O’Neill play entitled Hughie with the inimitable Mike McShane at 1.45pm every lunch hour at the Gilded Balloon. It’s a drama and I need to be sharp, damn it!

Tell us something about you that would surprise people.People who know me as the frenetic ‘take-no-prisoners’ type comedian with a filthy mouth and penchant for party stories might be surprised to find out that I was raised as devout born-again Christian in the Brethren faith. Who’da thunk it?

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?I open my eyes and remind myself to enjoy the day. It’s a flippin’ festival! If I’m not up for it, then why would the punters be. Get festive!

What the last thing you do before you go to bed at night?I say goodnight to my girlfriend and we share a little kiss on the lips before sleep. It’s a lovely habit.

Thanks for the interview. I’d like to buy you a drink. Where are we going and what are we drinking?Thank you. Tonight, we go for Margaritas at the Basement on Broughton Street. Tomorrow, at midnight, we drink cider on a random bench in the Meadows. It’s a flippin’ festival after all…

Phil Nichol: Too Much, Monkey Barrel 4. Until 25 August

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