Phil Cool - Stand-up Chameleon : My Life in Comedy (and music)

Ever wondered what happened to one-of-a-kind comedian Phil Cool?Well now you can find out, as told by the man himself... Young Mick, next door, played drums and bagpipes. Separately, of course, but it still annoyed our neighbours.He'd say stufflike: 'I'm quitting my band. They're a bunch of big-heads; not one of them isas talented as I am.'Then one day, in the early 1970s, he said somethingsensible. 'Phil, if you don't start doing proper gigs now, you'll be too oldand it won't happen.' So I made a decision to get serious, leave my job andmake the transition from wage to stage.By 1985, after playing every dive inthe UK, I'd honed a few hours of decent stand-up and landed a series on BBC2. Game-changer. After that I landed another, which won a Royal Television Awardfor originality. A third series, a special and two ITV series followed.Inthe late 1980s and early 1990s the phone didn't stop ringing; my memorable facewas everywhere.I had realised a dream. Then, as far as most viewers knew,