Phil Ellis: Unplanned Orphan

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Phil Ellis does achieve one incontrovertible victory with Unplanned Orphan – he succeeds in leaving his audience, this critic included, genuinely uncertain about what was an accident and what was planned from the beginning. The fire alarm, for example, I'm still not sure about.

The show attempts a distinctly risky tactic: it plays with the idea of a disastrous standup performance plagued by errors and technical faults, depending on the audience's creeping realisation that the string of failed jokes is actually a joke in itself. This requires a huge amount of good faith, which many Fringe-goers may not be prepared to give.

Ostensibly, the purpose of the show is unremarkable: comedic self-examination, focusing on dramatic revelations regarding Ellis's parentage, and life's unpredictable nature in general. As this preview performance proceeds, Ellis forgets punchlines, consults his notes, descends into nervous, pointless chatter and battles fruitlessly with technology of all kinds. He may be an Andy Kaufman-style savant, finding the humour in being intentionally unfunny, but unfortunately, his performance is just too convincing. The first half of the show survives through the indulgence of the audience, and only when the calamities become more obviously staged do a few genuine laughs start appearing. 

One aspect where the distinction between comedy and reality is thankfully made clear is Ellis's frequent arguments with his tech, the wonderfully deadpan James. Otherwise, Unplanned Orphan does its job too well, becoming a strange meta-entity: a fake-bad performance that becomes just what it is pretending to be.