When Phil Nichol was a younger comedian, he was loud, intense, and extremely physical in the way he ran around the stage and into the crowd to jump on the audience members, grabbed hold of everything he could find, literally and metaphorically. Phil Nichol is now 61, and the only thing that’s changed is he stops to get consent before touching audience members. He doesn’t seem to be getting too tired for his physical antics – quite the opposite, and that’s one of the things this show is about.
Aren’t We Lucky feels like old school Phil Nichol – it even repurposes one routine from his 2005 show Nearly Gay, which is fair enough; the statute of limitations against recycling material should have well passed if audience members who are old enough to drink were not born the first time it was performed. It’s also a very funny routine, and fit perfectly into the theme of Aren’t We Lucky.
Aren’t We Lucky is a cry against the idea that he should be slowing down as he ages, or that anyone else should be slowing down for any reason, even if they’re significantly older than him. It repeatedly drives home its message with a force of nature: we lucked into the exact configuration of atoms to give us the life we have today, and who are we to squander that by living small?
Some of Nichol’s previous material has been dark, some has been angry and raging in protest, and there’s something beautiful in seeing that, in 2026, he’s done his most life-affirming and uplifting show to date. He acknowledges the darkness, but rails against it with examples of people who live well despite it. He tells stories of people in dire situations who have made the most of it, and minor inconveniences that disprove the existence of God, and how the miracles of the universe can be so much bigger than what we imagine.
There’s a bit of a throughline in a story about Kevin Hearn of Barenaked Ladies and Lou Reed, but mainly, it’s all different anecdotes about grabbing the opportunities we have, including the amazingly unlikely opportunity of experiencing life at all. This theme is amazingly well-suited to Nichol’s intense style, and his relentless physicality had the room laughing almost constantly.
Dave Baillie