Phil Kay has set a precedent at the Edinburgh Fringe by becoming the first performer to acquire six stars for a show. Perhaps "acquire" is wrong - perhaps "appropriate", "purloin" or "commandeer" might be the correct term for he's achieved this remarkable feat by photocopying an extra star and adding it to the end of a line of stars on his posters.
And who would notice or care at this stage of the festival since every poster in every venue is adorned with redundant constellations worth of them?
It's one of the gags in his show. But even when I run into him in the street he jokes "I want six stars, I'm hoping to set a new standard in superlatives".
Well I hope he's happy with the four I've given him here. Let's call it four and half for he really was on fire the night I saw him.
Five stars is for the first time you watch Come and See in the cinema or finally exchange entire sentences with the girl you've been stalking for three years.
It's sitting through Mirror while Tarkovsky feeds you Talisker and dark organic chocolate and gives a personalised DVD extras style commentary on what he was thinking at the time. Five stars is for when...okay! I digress somewhat: I'm a few tangents short of a full shilling here, but this is what's Phil Kay's mind and his show is like, akin perhaps to subatomic particles skating over a scientist's testing surface to leave spectacular spiralling patterns, disappearing here and re-appearing there in a blast of poetic chaos.
Kay's become something of an Edinburgh Fringe institution, a perennial favourite whose hyper-kinetic free associations, made-up musical mantras, improvised randomness and high speed hyperbole have earned him a loyal fanbase. You can tell a ‘Kay-ite' in the pre-show queue for they'll be muttering to their friend "Oh with Phil Kay you never know what to expect - you take the risk this could be a duff night or equally the best gig of the festival".
He's certainly a brave man to repeatedly go on every night armed only with a recognisable face, a couple of stories that form the core of the show (if he even gets round to using them), a mini guitar that appears to be a unique banjo-cum-ukulele hybrid and a verbal pot pourri of chaos drawing his material from observations of the audience or the environment around him. That mic stand that's fallen over, that lady's hat, that bloke's profession, that plastic bucket on the stage, all these are valid launchpads for his anarchic mind.
Inevitably such a format can only be hit and miss. Not all of the bullets get through to their targets. Some gags go unfinished, sometimes it's so sharp its over half the audience's head. Sometimes I get the joke ten seconds after he's moved onto the next. Sometimes it's just plain silly, daft, fun, embarrassing, playful nonsense but every so often a few ferocious tracer rounds hit you square in the chest and you find yourself doubled up, head between your knees crying with laughter at something that is inexplicably hilarious.
The night I saw him he was on top form and although he told a wonderfully funny and touching tale of the waterbirth of his new son it was the little in-between nonsense moments that stuck in my mind.
The "pre-show" warm-up routine where he sings to the audience coming in and taking their seats, the stripping naked and performing Christine Keeler on a handy chair (called for by the audience).
He finishes by tipping a bucket of rubbish over his head mistakenly thinking it's full of plastic props. He has his head in his hands between his knees with genuine regret and embarrassment. The audience are on the floor laughing at this spontaneous piece of slapstick gone horribly wrong.
As he walks off pulling his trousers up to exit stage left the crowd cheers for more. Stellar stuff. Perhaps he really does deserve six stars for this one.
Times: 'London Aye' has finished its run but he has another show 'Edinburgh' at 6.45pm 27th - 30th Aug.