Peter Kay

(That Peter Kay Book: The Unauthorised Biography - Johnny Dee)

There's nothing more excruciatingly unfunny than modern day observational comedians, middle-class lads wandering out on stage in casual T-Shirt and jeans, scared to do any joke that maybe perceived to be mildly risky and so seen as offensive, and furthermore attacking any comic that does go there through the lad mag press. It's not easy telling jokes that are very funny ...
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The brilliance of Peter Kaye is he keeps that northern no holds barred humour alive through his comedy and able to get away with it with his loveable manor and cheeky chappy face. Phoenix Nights is essentially a blue-collar version of Ricky Gervais`s 'The Office', but just as clever in its own way, another strength of Peters comedy, able to appeal to all social classes. If you can do that you can shift a lot of DVDs in class riddled Britain, ... more

(That Peter Kay Book: The Unauthorised Biography - Johnny Dee)

There's nothing more excruciatingly unfunny than modern day observational comedians, middle-class lads wandering out on stage in casual T-Shirt and jeans, scared to do any joke that maybe perceived to be mildly risky and so seen as offensive, and furthermore attacking any comic that does go there through the lad mag press. It's not easy telling jokes that are very funny without gently hitting taboo topics like race, sexism, homophobia and ageism in this politically correct world. As bad as Bernard Manning could be at least he admitted he was partly racist on behalf of the millions that openly (or quietly) laughed at his jokes, dam near pretty much all of us at some point. And if you watch any ethnic comedian perform they tell reassuring racially stereotyping jokes to predominantly white audiences.

The brilliance of Peter Kaye is he keeps that northern no holds barred humour alive through his comedy and able to get away with it with his loveable manor and cheeky chappy face. Phoenix Nights is essentially a blue-collar version of Ricky Gervais`s 'The Office', but just as clever in its own way, another strength of Peters comedy, able to appeal to all social classes. If you can do that you can shift a lot of DVDs in class riddled Britain, as Kay has indeed done, his stand-up videos some of the biggest selling comedy DVDs of all time.

I read Kay's jolly autobiography and although reasonably entertaining it always felt like he was telling his life as if he was in another one of his sketches, Rather than wanting to reveal Peter the man, preferring to talk about Rola Cola and weddings in Bolton than the showbiz types that annoy him, why we read biographies. It was almost as if he's testing out new material on us. The reason I decided to read another book on him by an external source is that Kaye doesn't touch on the celebrity world remotely in his book he seems to shun but never the less is part of it and so he can't ignore. A good biography has to have some chicken on the bone. Reading his book was like sitting down at his family table for tea.

The book is mostly complimentary to Kaye and although claims no association with Peter to write it and does feel like the two are friends and not enemies. The Peter Kaye early years are just like yours and mine, the appeal of Kay to most, a guy that has lived our childhood and crappy jobs with us, doing 14 part-time and seven full time jobs before he really made his name.
His parents were solid Boltonian working-class, Peter very close to his car worker dad and his catholic mom. His love of television and comedy started very young and he used to tape hundreds of TV programs from his childhood-the 80s-and religiously catalogue them away in his bedroom. This is where his core comedy ethos and act was born and crafted.

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'Wigan's famous for rugby league and beautiful women. What position do you play love?'
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After enjoying school plays and being the class clown, Peter not the chubby Oliver Hardy he is today, he was scolded for his performance in the Christmas nativity play for add-libing his one line, offering Mary 'on suite and a full English' in that wonderfully broad Bolton accent at the inn.
He was never university stock but was always clever enough to go but intimated in that way working-class people are over higher education, and quite rightfully so. After doing a BTEC in drama at a local college he faked qualifications to do drama at Liverpool John Moore's, which he got away with, but gave up the course after only one week because he was missing mom and Bolton. Between those jobs, which included a job in a bingo hall, a Shell garage, a toilet roll factory and the MEN (the Manchester Evening News) Arena as a steward, he enrolled on a HND media course at a Bolton college that included a stand-up comedy module. Peter had finally found his calling in life, a chance for an attention seeker to connect to the audience he always courted through his jobs, the jobs that would prove fantastic material for the act.

Kay's rise to fame was rapid once he had an act of sorts, which earned the jealousy of fellow stand-ups just as quick, that the first revelation in the book and negative stuff I had heard about Kay, other than the Jill Dando joke he did around the time.Whats black and white and doesn't go out much? Jill Dandos cat! By now he was a pub circuit regular and picking up £50 night for 15 minute slots, what he was earning for a weeks work the year before in some jobs, soon to see his wages go ten fold when he won the prestigious City Life Comedy Award in Manchester, beating Johnny Vegas on the night no less. Previous winners had been the North West comedy elite, Steve Coogan, Caroline Ahern to name but two previous winners.

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"How many Protestants does it take to change a light bulb? None, they live in eternal darkness.
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His first TV appearance would be the Sunday Show, C4s racy comedy 60 minutes shown at an unholy hour on the day of rest, Kaye getting a short stand up spot. But it would be his sketch show appearance in 'The Services', a spoof of the ever blooming reality genre, looking at the day-to-day lives of service-station employees on the M6 that would make his face known to national TV comedy lovers. The location for the shoot was a bit of a fluke. No chain service-stations wanted to be sent up or be associated with a reality TV production, comedy or not, so said no. Fortunately for Peter one of the only two independent service-stations in the U.K was just 6 miles from his family home in Bolton, Peter playing multiple characters in the skits.

This would lead to C4 commissioning 'That Peter Kaye Thing', a whole series of these reality spoof sketches, ranging from the Shell garage to the MEN Arena, Peter reliving his months as a steward in the entertainment arena to hilarious effect.
It's here in the book that the author Johnny Dee brings up the subject of plagiarism and peter Kaye, other comics accusing him of knicking their best jokes to fill out his act, the hopelessly unfunny Adam Bloom chipping in on behalf of those disgruntled so called comics. Bloom is an example why we need Peter Kaye. Peter denies it and further irritated his fellow comics by ridiculing them during his stints as compare in comedy clubs, once heckling an impressionist who was struggling with his Terry Wogan by shouting 'Why don't you do Wogan...!?'

It would be Peter Kay's Phoenix nights that would send his comic stock ballistic, helping to boost his nationwide tour up to a record breaking 180 nights for the original 60, such was his growing popularity. Phoenix nights worked so well because Peter had the intelligence and ability to tell those risky blue jokes subtly, the principal character Brian Potter, a disabled man in a wheelchair no less, so Peter able to do disabled jokes that no other comic dare, accept that cartoonist in the Metro free newspaper with the Stephen Hawking gag.

"I hear Stephen Hawking has got a virus. Why don't we just turn him off and back on again"?

The appeal of Phoenix Nights was it was a skilful return to 70s bawdy humour, but brilliantly observed and presented so not to offend in that blatant Bernard Manning way, and what better place to set it than a working men's club. It was like The Office, but from the warehouseman's perspective. Working people are trapped by mortgages, unemployment, bills and family and live their fantasies by night through things like 'Talent Treck', the talent contest that Phoenix Nights was centred on the build up to, going head-to-head with his nemesis Den Perry at the rival Banana Grove club. Peter was loyal to the stand-ups and friends that supported him on the way up, directing the second series and employing many of them, 22 stand-ups featured in the second series. Where as The Royale Family show on BBC1 felt like a cruel pi**take of the working class as lazy ignorant slobs Phoenix Nights showed a different and more complimentary side of Northerners, hardworking and innovative.

Peter Kay's comedy ethic you should write what you know and for him that's why it works. And like Ricky Gervais and Steve Comedy he wanted to control his work by directing it, again a critical part of its success. His stuff isn't marmite comedy but gravy comedy-a question if you wanted more or less of it.
On the whole the book is a decent read, especially to those who didn't read Peters autobiography, although I would have liked a bit more dirt on the man and the people he doesn't like. At 220 pages you can whip through it in the summer sunshine in the garden and there's no big words or complications from the writer, a simple back story to a simple uncomplicated guy who makes us all laugh 

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