Edinburgh Festival, review, Dave Johns - I, Fillum Star: No fleeting celebrity encounter is allowed to pass

The star of Ken Loach's 'I, Daniel Blake' is back doing stand-up and tells the story of his shock rise to fame in film

Dave Johns performs his show 'I, Fillum Star' at the Edinburgh Fringe (Steve Ullahome)

“You can tell I'm working class, I've got bits of scratchcard under my fingernails,” says Dave Johns in a broad Tyneside accent. “It's the only way out!” The only way out of poverty, he means, although Johns, at the age of 62, found a novel way to escape his normal existence; which, we suspect, can’t have been all that bad, given he was a reasonably successful stand-up comedian with thirty years’ experience, a modest television career and time served in the theatre behind him.

Yet when Johns heard that Ken Loach was looking for a 60-something man to star in his new film about the punitive effects of the benefits system in contemporary Britain, Johns decided to give the director a call and pitch for the job. They met, Loach was impressed by Johns’ earthiness and his humour, and he bagged the job. I, Daniel Blake went on to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the BAFTA award for Best British Film, and Johns’ own accolades included – hilariously, as he points out – Empire’s Best British Newcomer award; a 62-year-old beating 20-year-old Tom Holland as a ‘newcomer’.

With tongue firmly planted in cheek and stand-up hat back on, this run at the Pleasance Dome theatre tells the story of Dave Johns’ shock rise to fame in film (or ‘fillum’, as his accent and the title has it) and what happened next. No fleeting celebrity encounter is allowed to pass without overawed but self-deprecating comment: from Meryl Streep nearly tripping over Johns as he rolled around a red carpet, to his overawed reaction to Nicole Kidman, to what happened when he chose the toilet cubicle next to Woody Allen.

Pleasingly – and he’s quick to point out the irony of I, Daniel Blake’s subject matter being placed alongside these tales of global jet-setting – Johns allows discussion of class to enter into proceedings, and he’s clear that it was his class which got him the job. He riffs on Brexit and on the tax affairs of some of the super-rich he meets, although things take a sharp turn when a 79-year-old lady in the audience informs him that not all pensioners voted for Brexit and he jokes about inviting her back to his Travelodge.

“It's turned into a late-night gig, I had to jump into mode there!” he says, checking himself, his rawer natural style clearly contained for an Edinburgh audience. As a rags-to-riches story it’s compelling and as an hour of stand-up it’s fun, but the sense is that Johns is holding a little back as he comes to grips with being a fillum star comedian.