Peter Kay: Live at the Top of the Tree

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Sunday 19th November 2017

Si Hawkins looks back at how the record-breaking comic made it from warm-up slots and dodgy flats to the biggest comedy tours, ever...

When Peter Kay played his first paid stand-up gig, at Manchester's Boardwalk club in the mid-1990s, he can't honestly have imagined that twenty years on he'd be the biggest live comedian in Britain; arguably the world. Although having said that, Oasis played one of their first gigs at the Boardwalk too, so that was clearly a decent place to start out if you did fancy a bit of enormously popular stadium-filling success.

The Peter Kay live experience really is a phenomenon, and the forthcoming tour is a mind-boggling epic: 99 shows that will rock some of the biggest venues in the country - London's 02, the Manchester Arena, Glasgow's SSE Hydro, Dublin's 3Arena, and big auditoriums in Birmingham, Belfast, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Nottingham and Newcastle too - for days at a time.

It's a run of dates that most global rock stars would give a whole wall of gold records for, and Kay's previous tour, in 2010, is still firmly registered in the record books as the world's biggest-selling comedy tour: quite a feat for a largely limelight-shunning lad from Bolton. Although, ironically, it's hard now to imagine him doing all the lower-key, career-building stuff that every other stand-up has to go through - but that's how he got here. Lots of car shares.

Lots of club gigs too, which could be nerve-wracking. Kay's second professional booking - he was fast-tracked up the club bills after winning the North-West Comedian of the Year Award in 1996 - was supporting The Fast Show's John Thomson at a sizeable venue called the Dancehouse. Thomson was running late after filming, so Kay was asked to fill time in front of 400 people. Which seemed a lot at that point.

He had the opposite experience after his debut night of shows at London's famous Comedy Store. Proprietor Don Ward's post-show feedback was a curt "22 minutes" - Kay's final set had gone two minutes over his allotted time. No encores in those days.

There were some grimy digs along the way, too. At his first full Edinburgh Fringe in 1998, Kay shared a Pleasance venue with Shakespearian actor Steven Berkoff (Steven had the big room, Peter the 100-seater) and shared a flat with fellow comics Phil Nichol and Junior Simpson. Well, two flats: the first was so dirty, they had to immediately move out and find somewhere else.

That Edinburgh run yielded a Perrier Award nomination, which gave his fledgling TV career a mighty boost, but he did the hard yards in that industry too. Kay spent several years as a warm-up man, tantalisingly close to the big time.

His first audience-wrangling gig was for a long-forgotten show called Conspiracy Theory starring Mark Radcliffe and Marc 'Lard' Riley. "Mark and Lard later admitted that I was the best thing on the show and I wasn't even on it," wrote Kay, later, "which I took as a backhanded compliment."

Then he did the pre-show stuff for the popular sports panel show They Think It's All Over, an experience that shattered his illusions that the guests all sit there wittily ad-libbing - he wasn't impressed. Better was his work before Parkinson, the revival of that legendary chat show: he eventually crossed the divide and became a hugely popular guest on there, too, as the work paid off and his career went stellar. Indeed, he was the star of Parky's last proper show, ten years ago next month.

Which does all beg the question: having already broken global stand-up records, and with channels and punters begging for the return of his various TV shows, why put yourself through another bunch of high-profile, high-pressure gigs?

"I really miss it," says Kay, in the brief statement that accompanies the tour announcement. "'I know how lucky I am to be making television series and have really loved these past few years working on Car Share but I miss doing stand-up. As terrifying as it is, when it works there's nothing more fun and exciting."

That's entertainment. As for what he'll actually be doing on stage, there's also a hint in that brief quote that he might delve into more contemporary issues than his much-loved observational style. Or maybe not. "A lot has happened in the last eight years," he says, "with Trump, Twitter and my Nan getting her front bush trimmed at the age of 96. I can't wait to get back up on stage."

It's been quite a ride from the Boardwalk. Interestingly, another notable name on the bill that night was Frankie Mulgrew, son of the legendary Irish comedian Jimmy Cricket: he eventually quit comedy and became a catholic priest. Frankie, that is, not Jimmy. The comedy gods move in mysterious ways.

Peter Kay will tour from April 2018 to June 2019. For tickets visit gigsandtours.com