Veteran British comedian fights the ageism of top television channels by filling theatres nationwide

Top British comedian and impressionist Phil Cool continues filling theatres nationwide
 
Dec. 12, 2011 - PRLog -- For a decade there was only one name on everyone’s lips when it came to original and creative comedy. With award winning series and specials for both the BBC and ITV, Phil Cool and his legendary rubber face was the toast of television. Programmers, directors and producers vied for his signature and acceptance. Today’s top comics remember Cool It and Cool Head as series that changed their own lives. Alistair McGowan says that it was Phil who “most inspired me to do impressions” while Jon Culshaw recollects that “Cool It was unmissable. On so many occasions Phil was the reason I missed doing my A level homework.”

But those halcyon days came to an end when quite simply Phil Cool became too old. Even though his viewer ratings hadn’t dipped, producers looked to new, younger talent to fill the airtime instead of looking after their most unique talent. It has now been almost twenty years since Phil Cool has been seen on our television screens, a fact considered criminal by Frank Skinner who says “’Cool It’ was fabulous, I can still remember so many of the sketches. Phil Cool belongs on television – he is a national treasure”.

The Phil Cool of today may be older than his 1980s counterpart but he still possesses the same extraordinary ability to change, in front of your eyes and without the assistance of make up, from Bill Clinton to George Bush to Tony Blair to Gordon Brown to Bugs Bunny to a multitude of other familiar characters. His observations, anecdotes, sketches and songs are timeless, priceless and most of all hilarious.

Phil is not worried by his lack of television exposure. At 64 he accepts that with the ageism that is endemic in the corridors at the BBC he is unlikely to be offered another series. “Both the BBC and ITV gave me some wonderful years” he says, “why on earth should I be bitter? Besides my real love is performing to a live audience, and that I have never stopped doing (except for the 9 weeks I took off this year following my heart bypass)” Indeed Phil Cool fights a clean fight against the television companies. In 20 years of near constant touring he has performed countless times in theatres throughout the United Kingdom. His fan base consists of those that were brought up on Cool It, those that have been cultivated through 20 years of tours and ironically those that discovered him for the first time through YouTube. Television may be short-sighted in its view of talent but theatres and their patrons – people of all ages and from all walks of life are not. Week in, week out they fill the seats at their local venues rather than sit at home in front of their sterile flat screens. Effortlessly Phil Cool proves that the country as a whole is not in the least bit ageist.

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Notes for Editors: For further information and to arrange interviews please telephone  
Beyond Eternity Promotions: 01242 587776.
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Download high res pictures from our website – go to Theatre Shows page and then ‘Phil Cool’
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