‘No, thank you for talking to me,’ says a beaming Phil Ellis.
It’s impossible not to match Phil’s bounce in our interview, with his contagious grins and chortles. This energy – not to mention his natural funny bones – is what’s sailed him through 20 years of being the ultimate comedian’s comedian.
He’s won the awards, critical acclaim, and a stellar reputation as one of the nicest guys in comedy. It was only last year, backstage at a particularly laborious gig, that he got a call which changed his career forever.
Phil, 44, was gigging at a festival, where the audience was just a 10th of a 2000-person space. Ouch. Backstage, a fellow comedian asked him why he’s never been on Taskmaster.
‘I said, “Well there’s so many comedians, it’s a big queue isn’t it? They’re not going to get me on, no one knows who I am,”’ he remembers.
‘I went out to the tent, and there were 12 audience members. I was hosting it, so I was trying to get an atmosphere going. I asked the audience if they wanted to move forward, because they were all at the back. They went, “No, we’re alright,”’ Phil laughs. ‘There was a gap of like a mile.’
In his break from hosting, Phil pondered that after 20 years, he thought he might have moved past these experiences by now. Then his agent rang.
‘It was an invitation for Taskmaster,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t believe it, and you couldn’t tell anyone, so I just had to go back out and carry on. I couldn’t even tell the person who asked earlier why I wasn’t on it.’
Phil’s work and life changed in a few salient ways after his appearance in series 20 in September last year alongside SNL’s Ania Magliano, Maisie Adam, Reece Shearsmith, and Sanjeev Bhaskar.
‘Firstly, the gigs I get now, I’m not worried about what I’m turning up to. They are so well run and wonderful. It opened the door to those. But the main thing is I’ve always loved my shows, and been really proud of them, and I’ve just always wanted to show them to more people.’
Pre-Taskmaster, Phil would take a show to the Edinburgh Fringe, and successfully so: he’d always have bums on seats unless it was a bad show. (I’m told not to look into 2017).
But his shows’ lives would begin and end in Edinburgh. ‘I couldn’t tour it because I didn’t have an audience to tour it to,’ Phil says.
Fast forward 12 years from when Phil’s Fun and Gamez won the Edinburgh Comedy Awards’ Panel Prize in 2014, his current show Bath Mat is the subject of his first full national stand-up tour. Many dates in his run are already sold out.
‘I can actually go out and perform to like 500 people a night in some venues, which I’d never have dreamed of before, and they’re all for you, which I find insane,’ Phil says, having become used to rocking up in random towns to perform poorly paid gigs.
He continues: ‘It’s nice to be the comedians’ comedian. But you do also need to live.’
Being recognised is a lovely adjustment, too, which Phil keeps on forgetting is his reality. He’s had a few memorable moments with fans over the last few months.
One time, Phil was going to the toilet on a train when a young girl asked, “Are you Phil Ellis?” He said, “Yes, I am”.
‘Then the lady came out of the toilet after me and just went, “He won’t flush that one,”’ the comedian says, laughing at the memory.
But it’s not all just funny. Phil finds the newfound fan interactions touching, too.
‘Once you pay for your tickets and your travel, maybe babysitters and a meal, I just want to make sure [my audiences] have the best night possible,’ Phil says. ‘Then they want to spend an hour afterwards doing autographs and things. It’s just amazing. I never thought it’d be like this. It’s moving.’
Another Taskmaster plus was that Phil was gifted a hair transplant in January after talking in a podcast about seeing a bird’s-eye-view of his not-so-luscious locks on the Channel 4 show.
‘I’d never been that insecure about my hair, to be honest,’ Phil laughs. ‘It’s been thinning for so long, it was so gradual. I was quite lucky really, it suited me, a receding hairline. But it took 20 years, and then I went, “Right, I’m definitely going now mate.”’
Phil had to choose where he wanted his hairline to start. Naturally, he brought in a photo of Jude Law, and said he liked his hairline receding, akin to the Hollywood heartthrob. It became apparent that such a hairline might not have the same effect on Phil, so he compromised with the kindly doctor.
‘This is a very different man,’ Phil laughs. He gestures to his head. ‘It’s so weird because if I showed you a picture of my hair six months ago, this is insane, like so much thicker.’
While there’s still ‘a lot of work’ to do on Phil’s mop, the change has given him ‘a bit more confidence’.
‘I’d made peace with it, but even now I look at it and go, “This is so much nicer,”’ he says. ‘I never want to encourage anyone to feel the need to do it, because I like people to feel comfortable how they are anyway. But equally, you should never be discouraged to do something that might make you feel better.’
He’s done Taskmaster. He’s had a hair transplant. What’s next for Phil Ellis? Will he strive for further TV appearances, or take a step back, as Phil puts it, like Homer Simpson into a bush?
‘I only got into stand-up because I wanted to write a sitcom, so I’d like to do that,’ Phil says.
Fans will be glad to hear he shall not be backing into the bush any time soon.
‘It’s nice to say you’re the guy on the edge of a comedy,’ he says. ‘But it’s also quite nice to be in the tent with everyone else, and not looking in going, “Hey, what’s it like in here, guys? You got free drinks?”’
Phil Ellis: Bath Mat is showing throughout August at the Edinburgh Fringe at the Monkey Barrel venue at 1.55pm, and in Pleasance Courtyard on selected dates at 9.30pm. Get tickets here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/phil-ellis-bath-mat
He is touring the show throughout the rest of 2026 into 2027. Get tickets here: https://www.philelliscomedy.com/