Phil Ellis: Funz and Gamez creator interviewed

Sitting in the vast auditorium of dock10 at MediaCityUK for the BBC Salford Sitcom Showcase, I spy a tall, gangly gentleman in a surprisingly well-fitted blazer. Gingerly he gives me the thumbs up, though he really doesn’t seem convinced. He certainly doesn’t seem sure that all these people are here to see him and the show he created with some friends about a failed comedian trying to make ends meet by putting on a kids’ show that isn’t for kids. But here we all are, excitedly awaiting the premiere of the Funz and Gamez pilot; the word-of-mouth smash of the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe that won the Panel Prize and would surely have won more were the awards not sponsored by a 'beer' company when the show was ostensibly for kids. Introduced finally by the director of BBC England, Peter Salmon, Phil Ellis enters in his usual awkwardly uncomfortable gait to present his work to the full room.

Flashback two years or so to the back room of Sandbar in Manchester, where Ellis was about to headline Red Redmond’s new material night. He is excitedly telling me about his new Edinburgh show idea, something he had come up with while at the Fringe in 2013 with his show Unplanned Orphan. It would be a kids’ show. Billed as a kids’ show. But it wouldn't really be for the kids. He didn’t have much in place other than that he knew he wanted Mick Ferry to play a dodgy alcoholic uncle. It was a great idea, I thought. But it’ll never come off.

"When people said it wouldn’t work I just got dead stubborn. Nobody tells me what to do!" he says, now sitting on the terrace above Knott Bar overlooking the busy interchange of Deansgate Locks. He’s just finished editing the Funz and Gamez TV pilot, so it seems the stubbornness has finally paid off.

The idea for Funz and Gamez came from the notion – which a lot of performers have – that kids’ TV is a simpler route to stardom. "People think because of Horrible Histories, 'I can get on telly easier.' So ‘Phil’ would be doing a kids’ show to make money." He refers to himself in the third person often, not in some arrogant sports star way but referring to the character he plays onstage.

If you’ve ever seen Ellis do standup then you'll be aware why he might need a stage name, though what with the manic shenanigans he's gotten up to you’d think he’d choose one that was further away from his actual given name. Playing a character one step removed from himself, he says, takes away "the pressure of people making you feel like you could be heckled, Like, 'You don't scare me, because I’m already broken.'" He plays the tragicomic figure well, and for great laughs, never dwelling on his own misery no matter how many times he mentions the girl that left him, Leanne. "She’s a real person. Should’ve changed her name for the pilot really. But she also married a builder named Jamie. That’s in there as well."

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"When people said Funz and Gamez wouldn’t work I just got dead stubborn. Nobody tells me what to do!" – Phil Ellis

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"If the audience think you’re a bit fragile they let you get away with more," he continues. "If I get them on side then I just do what I want." By 'doing what he wants,' he means the time he once drenched a woman with a bottle of beer for saying the show at Manchester's Frog and Bucket was boring; the time he chased a man around the room with his inhaler trying to get him to have an asthma attack at Baby Blue, or the time he washed a man’s hair in Shoreditch and charged him £25 for the privilege ("He thought, 'Yeah, I’m part of a 'happening'"). At the last gig The Skinny saw, Ellis spied a dog in the crowd and just started walking it up and down, seemingly for his own amusement, then leaped behind an empty bar and served a man a pint.

It’s this fearlessness and spontaneity that have led to comparisons to Andy Kaufman, a comic who redefined what a comedian could do for laughs without ever actually telling jokes, and certainly led to Ellis’s 2013 show Unplanned Orphan. Based on the conceit that Ellis had discovered he was adopted and that his birth parents had died, the show was a series of errors that culminated in a fire alarm going off in the building it was in, causing ‘Phil’ to lead everyone outside and confirm that there would be no refunds. It was daring and all too convincing. Reviews were even more confusing, with one mastering irony within its first line: ‘Paul Ellis’s show is strewn with errors.’ "That’s my favourite review I’ve ever had, we put it on the poster, ‘two stars, reads like a four.’ We got momentum about two weeks in when people started to get what it was, but by then it was too late."

On the first day, at least, it looked like Funz and Gamez might suffer a similar fate. With no PR backing, and very little money, Ellis flyered the show himself with Will Duggan dressed as Bonzo the Dog, a character from the show. Having sold just four tickets on the first day to a family, Ellis heard one of the kids cry "I don’t want to be here," so he generously gave them a refund. The experience was made easier, he says, "because we had a great group of people doing it. Duggan and Jim [Meehan] were great. It was nice to have a team rather than be up there on your own crashing and burning."

Help also came on the second day when a few comedians turned up intrigued by the ludicrous and lurid posters, and the fact that Phil Ellis was doing what seemed like a genuine kids’ show. The second day was attended by stand-ups Caimh McDonnell, Michael Legge and Silky, plus one family that left halfway through. The comedians then made it their business to make sure everyone came to see the show. To ensure that there was a healthy balance of families and adult comedy fans, Ellis started to give free tickets to kids.

This was the last time younger audience members were to get a free ride, though, with Ellis taking his unruly, heckler-baiting style to a whole new generation. "You’re not talking down to them," he comments. "You’re being rude to them. They love that. They find it funny." The comedians continued their patronage, and those with offspring brought them too. "For a comedian to bring their kids is good. Steve Pemberton from The League of Gentlemen said, 'My kids still talk about [the show].' I told him that’s nice and that I used to watch his show when I was on my dinner from the airbags factory I was working in."

The second-generation name-dropping doesn’t end there. "I’ve arm wrestled Sean Lock’s son. There was another show where there was this one kid with long hair and I told him to stop showing off. 'You won’t have so much hair left when you’ve been through a divorce. I bet your dad doesn’t have hair like that.' I looked up and his dad was Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh."

This level of respect from the comedy world helped turn Funz and Gamez into the TV show that is currently circulating on BBC iPlayer, with a host of other hopefuls. Ellis is keen not to rest on his laurels, however. "It’s amazing how much four weeks can change your life. It can still turn back. That’s why I’m not taking anything for granted. I went up to Edinburgh worrying about being just another Manchester comic, you know, part of the furniture – 'We like Phil, but he’s just there isn’t he.' So when it started going well I just thought, thank fuck for that, because I was going to have to start thinking of a backup plan. And I can’t go back to the airbags factory."

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Funz and Gamez Tooz is at Assembly George Square Gardens 6-24, 26-31 August at 3.20pm

Funz and Gamez is currently on iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02rn15x/comedy-feeds-2015-3-funz-gamez