Paul Connell - Ace in the Whole

Ace in the Whole' is a hilarious show by comedian Paul Connell. The show is filled with weird and wonderful stories with a heartfelt message.

Every Tuesday and Wednesday of the Fringe at Boteco Do Brasil at 7pm.

“Connell's Ace in the Whole is a lovingly crafted show. Fully realised and hilarious observations are interspersed with loving memories that are funny as they are heartfelt. Highly recommended!” Paul is a working class, Yorkshire act who delivers his material with energy and enthusiasm to take the audience on a journey with unexpected twists and turns. He has performed comedy for 5 years up and down the country, regularly hosting and headlining. Paul moved to Glasgow in 2020 and since moving up has built a reputation on the Scottish comedy scene and performs frequently at some of Scotland's biggest and best comedy clubs. He was part of two sell-out shows in the Glasgow comedy festival 2022, and has performed numerous weekend sets at several clubs, notably at Monkey Barrel's ‘Big Show’ in Edinburgh. He also performed in the 2022 Hull Comedy Festival ‘Best of ‘ull’ show, and you can catch him performing his show ‘Ace in the Whole’ up and down the festival scene over the course of the next year.

Your show is about grief: was this inspired by personal experience, and do you have any particular approach to the subject?

My brother Ace caught covid back in 2021 and passed away. Ace was by far the funniest person I knew, and we had spent our entire childhood just making each other laugh and pranking each other and just generally being mischievous little rapscallions! I found, however, that after he died, myself and the people around him stopped telling the funny stories and would always focus on the sad things and that frustrated me, as I knew my brother would want people to still be laughing about things and would not want his legacy to be a negative thing. So I started telling some of the stories of us growing up in my stand up and I found that audience really related to it and enjoyed it. But more importantly I felt that my brother was now back in my life not as this sad shadow that was always lurking in the back of my mind. But as someone that was still making me, and other people, laugh through these insane stories. My perspective on grief is this: once you stop telling sad stories and start telling the funny stories. You can find them again. They may not be the way they were, but they are still a positive force in your life even though you cannot physically see them.

You can probably tell that I am more familiar with theatre and comedy. Having said that, are there any comedians who have inspired you, and does your work fit into any particular tradition?

There are several comedy icons that I look up to for a variety of reasons! I think if you want to do stand up comedy, you have to be a comedy nerd! I grew up watching black and white videos of Norman Wisdom with my dad and I think that was the start of my love of comedy. I also grew up loving animation, like Looney Tunes and the old Disney cartoons.

And theatrically, any kind of farce I love! Then when I got older I became addicted to watching Norm MacDonald just cause havoc on talk shows and loved the sense of silliness and complete disregard for rules and expectations. I would say John Mulaney is a comedian who inspired me to do the more story telling style of comedy as I had always been driven to comedians who you feel like you know really well after watching them perform. On the Scottish scene my comedic influences are Chris MacArthur-Boyd, Liam Withnail and the person who really gave me the courage to do my show - Krystal Evans, who’s show ‘The hottest girl in burn camp’ deals with tragedy and comedy in a masterful way.

Since you live in Glasgow, what on earth is making you come to Edinburgh? Especially at this time of year?

I’m excited to come to Edinburgh because I just love paying £7 for a room temperature pint of average beer! But honestly the real reason is I grew up in Hull and moved up to Glasgow a couple of years ago and instantly fell in love with Glasgow and even more so fell in love with Glaswegians! The sense of humour that is in the city is amazing and regardless of age and background, everyone is so god dam funny! So it makes it a real challenge to make funny people laugh! I started performing a lot in Edinburgh and then I realised that all of Scotland just had a great sense of humour! I also wanted to do the fringe because there is something really cool about a city being taken over by weird and wonderful outcasts such as myself to be as wacky and creative as possible!

My show means so much to me and I genuinely see it is a real blessing that people want to come and see it. So the opportunity to come to the worlds biggest arts festival and make people laugh is my absolute dream! But seriously Edinburgh, refrigerate your beers and remember that for the price of 1 pint I can get 2 Tesco meal deals…that ain’t right!

You mentioned in your press release that you have had some interesting reactions from audiences. What are you expecting to happen at the fringe? And what kind of reactions have you had in the past to your show?

I’m not really sure what I expect from the fringe, I am keeping my expectations in check becuase I know how hard the fringe can be from speaking to others. But if people come along and laugh and feel in some way more positive after watching my show - I’ll be happy. After every show I have done at other festivals, from Brighton to Reykjavik and beyond, I get people come up to me afterwards and talk about how they have also lost someone who meant a lot to them and my reaction is always the same “that sucks…now tell me a funny story about them!”. And every time people smile and tell me some of the funniest craziest stories I have ever heard. It is a beautiful interaction and I am always so happy to hear them! With my show I have two goals, as a comedian I want to make people laugh, but as a person I want to connect and comfort others who may have been in a similar situation. I also have an absolutely crazy ending to my show that ends on a real high note, but if you want to find out that that is, you’ll have to buy a ticket!