phil mann
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Shows by Phil Mann 

Phil has a large body of previous work and a mix of comedy, theatre, film, performance art and improv. You can read about his previous successes below: 

Cyberpunk's Not Dead
(by Phil Mann, 2019-present)

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The year is 22XX, one year after they replaced some numbers with letters. McKellen, who has a job only slightly more futuristic than yours, is pulled into a world of murder, espionage, and things with flashing LEDs on themem.

Phil Mann's Full Mind
​(by Phil Mann, 2009-2017)

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Starting in a cafe in Edinburgh, Phil is asked to provide the history of the £2 coin, which starts a chain of events of Phil travelling all over the country to become a specialist in absolutely minute areas of uninteresting interest. This is the story of that journey as well as part of the journey. Phil prepares a new hour-long show each time completely at the audience's request and tells them exactly what it is they don't know. 

Premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Performed on tour and around the country at the Edinburgh Fringe multiple times, multiple venues in London, and regional venues around the country.

BattleActs
​(by BattleActs, 2008-2017)

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 BattleActs! is an award-winning, multi-five star, late-night improvised comedy party show that has performed to rave reviews around the country.  The show sees two teams of fearless improvisers pitched against each other by a ball-busting compère in a high octane mix of seemingly impossible challenges and incredible physicality. Their prize: the audience’s respect! Who will be victorious? Who will fall? COMEDY JUST GOT NASTY...

Recommended by The Independent (Top Ten Comedy Shows), TimeOut (Critic’s Choice) and a Smirnoff Hot Pick, this hilarious, no-holds-barred improv smackdown is not to be missed.

The show is performed by up to 10 people. Phil is a founding member and director of the company. 

Performed pretty much everywhere at the Edinburgh Fringe, London, regional venues large and small

Spacejunk
​(by Phil Mann, 2011)

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Hydrophobia
(by Phil Mann, 2015)

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​From the dry and deadly (funny) vacuum of space, to the terrifying (hilarious) blackness between the stars, a series of unhinged characters suffering with Hydrophobia: an aversion to water. A real dry comedy.

A one-man sci-fi comedy set on Mars, Phil is selected as part of a new reality TV show to colonise Mars. However, all the other contestants immediately die and Phil has to finish out the rest of the show as the programme's sole narrator, guest, contestant and performer, sending clips back home to hope that people are enjoying the show, with only his dolorous A.I. "Hephaestus" to keep him company. 

Premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe.


Not Funny Haha
(by Phil Mann, 2014)

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Not Funny Haha is Phil Mann's second full-length show. 

A mix of physical and multi-media comedy, surreal stories, madcap one-liners and comedy songs, it featured Phil playing Audience Tinder, space aliens, a woven narrative where Phil is the last of his race sent to earth to try and understand human behaviour; taking in Thomas the Tank Engine, woodchucks, Cosmo sex tips and attempts to dance The History Of Art.

Premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe and transferred to London's RADA Studios and various comedy venues. 

Nothingism
​(by Phil Mann, 2016-2017)

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A bad new craze is sweeping the nation: Nothingism. It's ruined everything we hold dear. Hot off the heels of "anything can be art" is "nothing can be art". If you liked, "too cool for school", you'll love "too cool for literally anything".

Is it a twisted satire of modern culture obsessed with box-sets, apps and technology, or is it a show by weirdly prescient Phil Mann? A one-man sketch show that is weird, moving and obsessed with… well… nothing.

​An entirely improvised one-man one-hour show from Phil Mann, taking five audience suggestions he weaves a bizarre narrative full of monsters, unearthly creatures and madcap schemes created by the Nothingists to overthrow popular culture. Somehow, however, they are always defeated. 

Premiered in London and transferred to the Edinburgh Fringe and subsequent national tour. 

 The Transaction
(by Phil Mann, 2008)

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A play by Phil Mann. Developed with playwright April D'Angelis and Hollywood actor Edward Woodall. 

Disillusioned investment bankers make off with government money. It's simple … until a dying pimp, a doppelganger and a philosophical sheep get involved. ’The Italian Job’ set in Iraq, with a sheep playing Michael Caine.

A response to the absurdity of the Iraq War in which reviled bankers attempt to become adored ambassadors for extreme communism. 

How To Waste Money on Mere Happiness
​(by Mann, Brophy, Tansey, 2014)

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Created with Anna Leong Brophy and Ayesha Tansey as part of the New Diorama Emerging Artists Programme. 

Find percentage of the population that is literate. Find the infant mortality rate. Find the life expectancy. Find the physical quality of life. Now you know the universal formula for happiness. What is yours? Can happiness be bought, sold, found or lost?
Taking place on two continents simultaneously and linked by video link, the three performers attempt to find the meaning of happiness in the UK and Malaysia simultaneously, one half by putting on a theatre piece (UK) and one by having a party in a restaurant at 3am (Malaysia).

Attempting to gather cat videos, graphs, data, ambitions, hopes, dreams, money and a damn good time all in one performance, we attempt to make you happy, or at least get money trying.  


A series of character sketches written, performed and directed by Phil Mann featuring Christopher Eastwood and Anna Leong Brophy. 

The Art of Fugue: Two characters, drifting in a time-less dimension attempt to create a nice bowl of lentil soup, but accidentally end up creating the entire universe as we know it today, and feel responsible for all the tragedy that has befallen mankind. 

#FFFFFF Christmas: A sentient B-flat is drifting through the cosmos when he becomes trapped in a Bing Crosby performance and must live out the rest of his life on a magnetic tape, endless duplicated across the decades. 

​The Entirety of Quantum Physics Explained:  An interactive sketch where the audience members are participants themselves in explaining how Quantum Physics works back to one another, with jokes! 

Premiered in London and performed at various venues around the city..

Ukulelian Invasion
​(by Phil Mann, 2012)

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A pub show created to be performed at the tiniest stages in the country: in the corner of pubs and on small stages at cabaret venues. 

A story about how a man was abducted by aliens, but can't tell anyone about it, so instead has made a cabaret show about a man being abducted by aliens but can't tell anyone about it so have made a cabaret show about...

The Absurdity of Vanilla
​(by Mann, Bailey, Shucksmith, 2008)

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Created with Christopher Brett Bailey and Clare Shucksmith

​Sex, lust and social conditioning. Why do Britons like missionary more than any other sexual position? A high-octane joyride through the philosophy of sexual liberation. Follow four modern anti-heroes on a quest for self-fulfillment.

​As If A Rag
​(by Mann, McClelland, Griffin, 2003)

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Created with Rhys McClelland and Lee Griffin 

A devised piece exploring themes of war, mutually-assured destruction, decay, death and sacrifice. Winner of the Director's Guild Award and the Sunday Times Commendation for Theatrical Innovation, was given a bursary to tour to the Edinburgh Fringe and various venues around the country including The Red Lion Theatre in Islington and the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster.

Motivate! & Accelerate!
​(by Mann, Bailey, Shucksmith, 2009)

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.Created with Christopher Brett Bailey and Clare Shucksmith as part of the BAC (Battersea Arts Centre's) programme for emerging artists.

Fitness, body-image and confidence are important to us all, and this group of weirdos are going to attempt to achieve it every night in this performance. 

A multi-media performance in the style of an exercise video, we draw on cultures from around the world to attempt to deal with how we feel about our terrible bodies. 

Shows starring Phil Mann

The Inconsiderate Aberrations of Billy the Kid
(by Christopher Brett Bailey, 2007-2010)

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with Phil Mann as Marty (Dad).

Billy shoots his mother because he doesn’t want to go to school. Free from parental control, will he ever manage to clean up the mess? Will his father discover that he’s seducing the pizza delivery girl, wrapped in the skin of his dead wife? Will the pizza delivery girl fulfill her aspirations of perfect customer service? Billy thinks he’s got away with murder but nothing’s ever that simple …and Billy’s mom is up in heaven, galvanizing an army of feminist angels…
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From pub theatres and comedy clubs to an unlikely run of late-night performances at the Unicorn Children’s Theatre,  The Inconsiderate Aberrations of Billy the Kid toured the UK off and on from Xmas 2007 til Halloween 2010, earning a ThreeWeeks Editor’s Choice Award and a cover feature in the Guardian’s G2 Magazine in 2009.

Back To School
(by Clementine Wade, 2009)

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with Phil Mann as the Science Teacher

Back To School is a site-specific, interactive experience where audience members are cast as students.

Mixing comedy and masterclass, ‘pupils’ attending ‘Saint Dumbiedykes’ will study insect dissection with one of the country’s most renowned entomologists, take sex education classes with flirtation expert Tracey Cox, hear their graduation speech given by Jonathan Ross as well as enjoying irreverent takes on the school assembly, school dinners and the end of term disco. Featured cameos from David Baddiel and Felicity Montagu.

Developed in response to the renowned psychological experiments of Zimbardo and Milgram, it plays on the social construct of the school, giving the audience another chance to be big kids and mess around in assembly, spicing up the educational debate and proving it is never too old to be young and never too late to learn. 

The One Hour Plays
(by The Matey Institute 2011-2016)

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with Phil Mann as a Matey 

You may have heard of the Old Vic’s 24 Hour Plays... Plays written and performed in 24hrs? Big deal.

The Matey Institute presents The One Hour Plays! With copious help from our audience, each play is conceived, devised, costumed, scripted and performed before your very eyes - complete with a freshly composed score! Art Attack meets Anneka Rice with live playwriting, this is a richly sensory spectacle which lays bare the nuts and bolts of the theatre in all its eccentricity.

A master-class in how to put on a production, and an exercise in frenetic creativity under unbelievable pressure.

The Perils of Love and Gravity
(by Michael Keane, 2011)

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with Phil Mann as Graeme

A curious heroine, questionable heroes, untuned pianos and a giant upturned triangular house, in this colourful fairy tale for grownups. Anarchic storytelling in this one-liner heavy comedy piece.

In a subsiding, upside down mansion, lonely and curious Misha dreams of the outside world in this twisted and twee fairytale. Against a backdrop of projected silhouettes, the story of her various doomed love affairs is told at breakneck speed by the charmingly demented host of characters, with the ultimate unreliable narrator who picks the plot apart with knowing subversions and silly set pieces. 

Monkey Toast
(The Monkey Toast Players, 2015-2017)

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with Phil Mann as a Monkey Toast player

Improv is the best kind of wildcard. It can take you to a different time, show you a new perspective and make you laugh at things you never thought you’d see in a public space (no need to keep your mind out of the gutter, we go there often). That’s what we do.

Canadian Comedy award winner, “Monkey Toast: The Improvised Talk Show” is now international with Monkey Toast Toronto and Monkey Toast London (UK).

Here’s how it works: Each show we interview two different celebrity guests. After an interview segment, our hilarious host throws the focus to the Monkey Toast players who then use the interview as the inspiration for their improvised scenes.

Masters of improvisation and experts at all forms and formats of improv, Monkey Toast goes from strength to strength, and is the beating heart of improv in London's comedy scene.

  • About
  • ▼ Content ▼
    • Articles by Phil
    • Full Mind (YouTube)
    • Day of the Day Day (YouTube)
    • Media Featuring Phil
    • Copywriting
    • Nothingism Award and Reviews
  • reel
  • Gallery
  • The Press on Phil Mann
  • Phil's Shows
  • ▼ Contact ▼
    • Contact Page
    • Backstage.com Profile
    • Casting Networks Profile
    • Actors' Access Profile
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
  • "Backstage.com"