Peter Kay

Video: Peter Kay calls Liam Gallagher a knobhead

Peter Kay branded Liam Gallagher a 'knobhead' at last night's Brit Awards.

What's wrong with Michael McIntyre?

Michael McIntyre came out of nowhere and is phenomenally successful. Not since Peter Kay has a comedian landed mainstream success so quickly. That's largely why a lot of his peers loathe him. It's not so much hostility towards his abilities, more straight jealousy.

The novelty of tribute comedy

Can't get tickets for Peter Kay? Why not see a Peter Kay-style show? But should we be celebrating the age of the copycat comic?

The kings of British comedy

While Peter Kay is currently comedy's undisputed king of commerce, there's no shortage of pretenders to his throne.

There are some editions of Ross's chat show when you half wish that instead of watching the host bounce one-liners off his guests, we could eavesdrop on the chit-chat in the green room. Tonight, for instance, I'd love to hear what Jeremy Clarkson, Peter Kay and Laurence Fishburne find to talk about as they loll in the chairs waiting to go on. Surely there's scope for a BBC3 spin-off show that would let us in on the behind-the-scenes fun and celebrity banter, possibly entitled Woss Going On? What we'll actually get is some alpha-male sparring in the studio between Ross and Clarkson, whose attempts to best each other have in the past made them sound like cocky teens trying to out-brag each other on the school bus. Still, it'll be worth seeing. Kay should lighten things up nicely while Fishburne, now heading up the all-conquering CSI franchise, brings genuine Hollywood star power.

Charlie Brooker has a rival (um, sort of) to his You Have Been Watching - Steve Jones with his own celeb game show chewing over recent telly. The fact that his team captains are Fern Britton and Jason Manford, the cut-price Peter Kay, will give you an idea of the level this is pitched at.

Of course, were Peter Kay to do anything as good as Phoenix Nights again we'd be happy. Sadly it was almost impossible to judge Britain's Got the Pop Factor... with an open mind as the man hasn't done anything for four years except mime to other people's records and release the same DVD over and over again. The sheer scale of this one-off Channel 4 comedy spectacular was a big problem. Running for two hours may have been accurate, but it meant jokes were stretched to breaking point. Once you've seen one inappropriate musical segue, you've seen them all. Plus, surely we have now bled dry that seam of comedy that sees celebrities sending themselves up? Here it was like one prolonged back slap, and while it may make sense of the plot to record a generic song for the winner, singing it three times on the programme and then releasing it is not comedy, it's advertising.

Tribute is paid to a very different form of entertainment in Comedy Songs: The Pop Years. But what exactly, one of the first questions asks, is a comedy song?

"A song that makes you laugh," suggests Victoria Wood. She should know, having sung dozens in her breakthrough TV gig on consumer show, That's Life.

She's an original whose song, Let's Do It Again, is described as a mix of George Gershwin and Alan Bennett, as she celebrates "the absurdity of the mundane".

Who cannot warm to a song whose lyrics include the lines "Bend me over backwards on me Hostess trolley" and "Beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly"? Eat your heart out, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The history of comedy songs reflects the changing voice of comedy in general, from music hall songs, to Peter Kay's recent number one, as Geraldine with The Winner's Song.

Writer David Quantick traces the origins of the comedy song back to "some pillock in a jester's hat with a lute, singing about his genitals to the king, making it up as he went along".

One thing about comedy songs is that they may be irritating, but you can't stop singing them. The skiffle era gave birth to such memorable ditties as Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On The Bedpost Overnight? What sort of mind comes up with a lyric like that?

The birth of the singles chart in the early 1950s meant that comedy songs could make money. The Barron Knights and The Goons had hits. There were topical songs at the start of TV's That Was The Week That Was, and Benny Hill sang about Ernie, who drove the fastest milkcart in the west.

Many songs came from TV shows like The Two Ronnies, The Goodies (doing the funky gibbon) and It Ain't Half Hot Mum duo Don Estelle and Windsor Davies duetting on Whispering Grass.

Comedy songs gave hits to people who wouldn't normally expect to make the charts. Barry Cryer recalls having a number one in Finland 50 years ago with a cover version of Purple People Eater - which, on reflection, sounds like something you might find in Crooked House.

Geraldine: The Winner's Story

Simon Cowell is facing a further ribbing - Peter Kay's X Factor spoof star Geraldine McQueen is making a telly comeback.

Comic Kay wins 'X Factor battle'

Comic Peter Kay has beaten X Factor winner Leon Jackson in the singles chart with his spoof reality TV show song, 'The Winners Song'. Kay's single - taken from his Channel 4 comedy Britain's got the Pop Factor, in which he satirises TV talent shows - charted at number two.