Phil Henley's Spellbound, an account of life with dyslexia, inspires

Winnipeg Free Press

24-05-2025

Some might know Canadian standup comedian Phil Hanley from memorable appearances on late night talk shows or festival appearances found on Instagram, where his intelligence and quick crowd work have won the Oshawa native a growing audience.
In his surprising and moving memoir Spellbound, we learn that planting his feet on the standup stage and finding comfort and a career came to Hanley after many globetrotting adventures — all the while struggling with a severe form of dyslexia that made almost everything he undertook at school painstaking and fraught with anxiety.
As is often the case with many brain processing issues, his one challenge is often compounded with others. Whether his distractibility and obsessive compulsions are also medical grade is less relevant than how Hanley has managed to cope and flourish.
Spellbound
While Hanley mixes up letters and numbers, it seems the number '10' starts to stick. Fancy folks in the fashion business see a commodity in his healthy figure and handsome face. Suddenly, a standup memoir becomes a book about high fashion during a fertile and freaky era. (The more the better!)
Soon Hanley is in Milan working as a runway model. He finds a similar lost soul in the troubled and ill-fated designer Alexander McQueen.
But life on the upside has its downs, and after a whirlwind season or so and a heavy heartbreak, Hanley lands back in North America. Next up, he's testing his quick wit with the improv collective Upright Citizen's Brigade — who, along with L.A.'s The Groundlings, have been keeping Saturday Night Live in cast members for many seasons. It's during this period in New York that Hanley begins to explore whether solo standup might be the ideal job.
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At the same time, a need to stay grounded leads him to transcendental meditation, made famous by the likes of the Beatles and David Lynch. The practice helps Hanley write, focus and tap into the absurd ideas that make his comedy unique. Being a former model doesn't help much on open mics, but it comes in handy as his prospects improve.
Hanley's description of his rise to current fame takes up the last quarter of the book and is funny, wise and engaging. But near the end of his story so far, he circles back to his most steadfast companion — dyslexia. With Spellbound, and in his talks in schools, he is working to remove stigma and dispense encouragement.
It must be said that it's not in paper format that we feel the full power of Hanley's resilience. He has recorded an audiobook, which took him over twice as long as a regular reader.
Dyslexia doesn't care that he wrote the book. So while this review of Spellbound covers the print edition, the audiobook is a massive personal accomplishment, and should be mentioned as such.
Lara Rae deals with attention deficit disorder and borderline personality disorder, and is a standup comic originally from Glasgow.