Phil Nichol - Hiro Worship

Published Tuesday 14 August 2007 at 10:20 by Chris Wilson

Phil Nichol is an incredible performer.

After winning the If.commedies Award last year with The Naked Racist, you might have imagined him finding it hard to match his previous form. Yet, this show was absolutely outstanding.

With a band clad in Rolling Stones T-shirts behind him, Nichol told the extraordinary - and, he says, true and totally unembellished - story of Hiro, a Japanese man whom he befriended at a gig, and put up for a month in his house in north London.

Hiro quickly proved to be a Stones-obsessed fanatic who played his heroes’ hits on Nichol’s electric guitar from 6.30am each day to the distress of his housemates. Nichol related the tale in all its lunatic detail with tremendous presence and power, punctuated by Stones numbers performed by him and the band.

The section about how Nichol ended up staking out Mick Jagger’s mansion in a bid to make Hiro return to Japan and, later, blowing his chance of bedding Jerry Hall by telling her all about this incident was hilarious.

Nichol’s love of performance and his gift for relating to his audience came across strongly, and the musical finale had the audience singing their hearts out.

This is a show that will leave you grinning for a week.