Fans of QI, Answer Me This!, and all things ‘funny and a bit clever’ will love Phil Mann’s Full Mind. Each and every day of the festival, Mann is given a topic on which he has to give a talk and that audience then chooses the topic for the next talk. Simple. The clever bit is Mann’s ability to take the most obscure of subjects, break them down and, with the most precise of comic timing, deliver them to an audience in a way that is not only entertaining, but also a little educational too.
We saw him give a talk on the age-old ‘How much wood can a woodchuck chuck’ and then on helium (each performance gives a pair of talks). With the aid of imaginary slides and a little audience participation he had us rolling on the floor laughing and scratching our chins knowingly.
The show started out as an impromptu side project to Mann’s actual production in Edinburgh two years ago and it became such a success that it not only continued for that whole festival, but has come back each year since to a heaving crowd.
The first lecture of Edinburgh (tonight!) will cover ‘Why Corgis look like both cats and dogs’ and ‘Why Aren’t Alternative Therapies Available on the NHS’. Leave your perpetual wondering at the door.
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Phil Mann’s Full Mind is on from 2nd-26th August for free
at the Laughing Horse – The Counting House
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