Guantanamo Phil

British Comedy Guide talks to Steve Edge, who stars as Guantanamo Phil in a Channel 4 Comedy Showcase pilot...

Hi Steve. You've starred in quite a few sitcoms now... but how did it start for you? Was it via Peter Kay?

Well, Peter Kay was in the year above me at Salford University and we were sort of friends because we liked Porridge, the Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais sitcom. So I knew Peter quite well, but then he left. The next year I was in A Midsummer Night's Dream and he came back and watched it. Afterwards, he took me into a corner and went 'if I ever write a sitcom, I'll put you in it'... and I went 'yeah, alright then', not thinking much of it at the time... and then he wrote That Peter Kay Thing.

Peter was true to his word, and thus I appeared in the show as a character called Alan. I was in four of the six episodes I think. Then, from that, we obviously went on to do Phoenix Nights. I used to do stand-up as well, so I was friends with a lot of the cast already, so it was like doing a job with your eleven best mates. It was brilliant really.

It was the first time I'd done any TV acting really, and it was a real great way to learn, because Peter was so hands on directing it - we got to in the edit and everything and so really got to see how a good sitcom is made. It was a great experience.

Obviously after that you had guest spots in things like Peep Show, before going on to take on major roles in comedies like Mike Bassett: Manager, Star Stories and The Visit. Plus, there was I'm With Stupid, which we really liked but seems to have faded into the background a bit...

Ah, yeah, I'm With Stupid - that was good fun to work on. Mark Benton was a terror to work with though, because he tries to make you muck your lines up, and he messes about loads. He would purposely try and send me in the wrong direction and things like that. A very nice man and a great laugh, but an absolute terror too. Ha ha. It was Christine Gernon who directed that, and she's since gone on to do sitcoms like Gavin & Stacey and Home Time.

You've done a couple of sitcoms based around football, most recently The Cup. We're guessing you might be a football fan?

I am, yeah. I'm a Wolves season ticket holder. I've never thought about it until now but, um, yeah I suppose I have done a few football-related comedy things. I had to play a Bolton fan in The Cup - Wolves and Bolton never really get on - and I remember editing a script, and wherever it said 'Bolton Wanderers' I'd change it to just 'Wanderers', hoping they'd let me off having to say I supported Bolton.

I have a little shed at the bottom of my garden which I share with someone who used to play for Bolton and they said, 'you didn't mention that photograph of you in the Bolton shirt', and I went, 'nah, lets not talk about that!'

We're going to take a guess here: is Star Stories, in which you got to play lots of different characters, one of the most enjoyable things you've done?

Yeah, because a lot of my best mates are in that show, including Harry, Kev, Dolly and Laura. It's a weird one though, because the thing about Star Stories is you either like it or you hate it. There's no in-between. I've met some people who proper hate it. But, yes, it was good fun to be in. I'm not sure we're going to do any more though, because I think we did all the obvious targets. There was talk of us going back further into the past and doing Bogart and people, and doing a 50s one, but the Star Stories audience are quite young so there was a worry they wouldn't care about that era. Also, I think we had to stop because we were starting to jinx a few people with that show - I was Patrick Swayze in it, Tom Meeten did Michael Jackson, there was the one with Peter and Jordon, and they've obviously just split-up...

... and you were Boy George which, incidentally, was one of our favourite 'impressions' in the show.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about him. One of the actors went to a show and met some of some of George Michael's mates, and when he rings one of them he apparently goes "you're a gay" - so he does an impression of me, doing an impression of Boy George, doing an impression of him... which is weird!

Surreal! Do you have a favourite Star Stories character?

I really enjoyed Paul McCartney (pictured), because I just tried to make him Rigsby. When he was Paul in the Beatles I would do him Scouse, but when I did him in the present day I would always do him as Rigsby.

Overall, I think the George Michael episode is probably one of the best ones, I enjoyed being Boy George in that.

We've spotted your name coming up in the writing credits on shows like 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Walk on the Wildside... is writing something you're looking to move into?

Me and Jason Manford have actually been writing together for about seven years. We started writing a sitcom together. We actually met because a gig at Manchester University had been cancelled, and what was on in the room instead was judo practice. So Jason is sat there waiting for this gig that had been cancelled, and I opened the door and saw a bloke get thrown across the room and went 'bloody hell, it's tough in there', and that's how we became mates.

So, yeah I write with Jason on 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Walk on the Wildside, and me Kev and Harriet from Star Stories are writing something together now too... so I'm doing a bit of writing, yeah. You never know what's going to happen, and you never know if things are going to get picked up or not. The sitcom Jason and I wrote was nearly a Comedy Showcase, but then, er, it wasn't.

The Comedy Showcase pilot you are in is Guantanamo Phil - can you tell us a little more about the show?

Yeah, sure. I play a guy called Phil Mill, who has just arrived back in England after having spent six years in Guantanamo Bay.

Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni off The Worst Week Of My Life have written it. Guantanamo Phil is similar to that in a way, in that there is a central character who is essentially a nice guy, and he's in the middle of a world populated by people who are bit weird. This is a man who has just come back from Guantanamo Bay, so you'd think they'd be more normal than him.

The comedy comes from the fact that, if you take someone away from their life for six years, things are going to have changed. When Phil left he was an assistant manager of Woolworths, and he doesn't know about that; he doesn't know what Facebook is, or what an iPod is - it's like he's come back to a foreign country. And then, on top of that, he's become a bit of a minor celebrity... he's 'Guantanamo Phil', so he's gone from being a normal guy with a normal job to someone who doesn't know what's going on and is suddenly in the spotlight too.

When Nelson Mandela got off Robben Island he didn't go 'you bastards, I'll get you', he just got on with his life. It didn't change him as a person. And that's essentially what Phil is like in Guantanamo Phil - he's just a nice bloke. As viewers, we have no idea what Phil went through, it's never suggested - I don't think it's really part of it, Guantanamo was just a device for moving him away from England for six years.

Well it looks like a great show. The preview clip of you meeting airport security in England in your orange Guantanamo jumpsuit made us laugh a lot...

Justin and Mark do that sort of thing. Like they did in The Worst Week Of My Life, they write things that start off quite normal but start escalating and end up in slapstick, in a way. The scene you're talking about I loved filming - I mean, when are you ever going to get the opportunity to go a luggage carousel... never! I loved it!

Was the airport you filmed that at open at the time?

It was filmed at Blackpool International Airport. I don't know why they call it 'International', because it's basically just flights to and from Dublin! We also used the John Lennon Airport for the arrival stuff by the way, but, no, it wasn't open at the time. I think the police running around with guns would have scared people.

I remember saying, 'Am I alright going through this hole in the wall... what is through hear?' and nobody knows what was through there but they said anyway: 'yeah, go on, just go through'. As the bags come out of there I was just guessing it wasn't a crusher on the other side of the wall!

Ha ha. Obviously these Comedy Showcase pilots are setup to try and help Channel 4 find some hit new comedy series... do you think Guantanamo Phil has got the potential to extend to a series?

Yeah, I think so. In this first episode it's just about the homecoming generally. There's a little bit of build-up with things like a suggestion that something might have gone on with his girlfriend Carly, who has been waiting for him for six years, whilst he has been away, but there's plenty more scope for things like that to be explored if it gets a full series.

There's various ideas. One of the ideas I had is that he would have to go on a reality TV show because he couldn't get a normal job. It would be a reality TV show called P.O.W. where the contestants have to live like prisoners - and he just walks it, as he's been through much worse in real life. But, yeah, I think Mark and Justin have got a lot of ideas for stuff like that and all the things he has to deal with, now he has a minor celebrity status.

Great, nice to hear the show has the potential for a series. Cheers for your time Steve!