by Dave Spikey
A6 in a Camper Van
THANKS TO MY increasing experience, and my continuing regular London gigs, I was doing well on the comedy circuit. After one show at Jongleurs Camden, which was a fantastic gig early days, a lovely girl called Lisa White asked if I’d consider joining her agency and allow her to represent me. We had a quick chat as I had a train to catch; I liked her a lot and agreed, and she started to get me gigs with Off the Kerb and other big agencies.
I’d been with her a couple of years, I think, when she phoned and told me that she’d got an associate producer’s job on a new television stand-up show called Gas, which was to be hosted by Lee Mack and which would be a showcase for brand new comedy talent. They were auditioning in Manchester the following week and she had a list of up-and-coming comedians that had been submitted by a Manchester agent that she wanted to run by me.
I gave my opinion on the mixed bunch, and then expressed my disbelief that Peter Kay wasn’t on the list, as he was potentially a huge star and already in a different league to those she’d got on the list. She made a few calls and Peter was added to the show. A few weeks later, he had a great gig on Gas, then joined Lisa’s agency and was on his way. To my surprise, a few months later, so was I.
In time, Peter became hot property and Granada TV asked him to submit a script or idea for development. We’d been writing a few things together since we met – including a script for a sitcom/sketch show called It’s Dick Martin, which revolved around the writers’ room in a TV studio, as the writers turned out scripts and gags for the elusive ‘Dick Martin’, a smarmy, greasy yet hugely popular chat-show host.
The writers were a diverse bunch, ranging from the old school to the new breed, which generated the tension and friction that is essential in every good sitcom. The added dimension was that every time the writer(s) left the office, they would enter a sketch, which had nothing to do with the main storyline and was standalone but funny. The characters in the sketches would be played by the same actors, disguised by makeup, costume, gender, as in all good sketch shows, and would return every week. The script and sketches were written, but nobody took up the idea – idiots. I suspect they’d have been all over us a few years later when Phoenix Nights was breaking.
Anyway, Granada were going to produce a series for up-and-coming comedians, which was to be called Mad For It – and so the comedians or sketch groups had to come up with a ‘Mad for … whatever’ idea. Peter was approached to provide one of the episodes, and he very generously said he would do it if I could be involved, which they eventually agreed to.
We had conversations about suitable topics and Peter and I thought that ‘Mad for the A6’ might be fun. There had been programmes about Robbie Coltrane travelling along Route 66 and Billy Connolly (or was it Lenny Henry?) motoring down some other famous US highway, and we thought it was about time that the main arterial road going through our region got its deserved recognition. Peter thought it would be good if we started at the bottom of the Granada region in Buxton and drove north until we ‘lost’ signal and the picture started breaking up in the Lake District. He also thought it would be funny if we had just one cameraman, a lighting guy and a sound engineer travel with us in a VW camper van.
We had one dry run, where we basically noted any significant landmarks or signs or buildings/pubs etc. along the way, while Peter taped our improvised comedy views, and then we did the drive for real. He wrote odd scenes, like the one where he visits Manchester Apollo, while I wait outside making cars crash by pointing a hair dryer at them in the manner of a speed camera. Neil Fitzmaurice (who later co-wrote Phoenix Nights with us) features as manager or techie at the Apollo in a very funny scene, which Neil may have had a hand in writing.
Peter met Neil on the North-West comedy club circuit and had recognized his huge talent for comedic performance, impressions and writing. I had moved on to the London and national circuit by then, so hadn’t seen him, but Peter rated him highly and he wasn’t wrong. Neil is a great bloke, immensely talented as a writer, actor and comedian. He’s reluctant to perform stand-up these days as he doesn’t really enjoy the experience, much preferring to concentrate on his acting and writing instead.
En route on the A6, we stopped by a field and I did a routine about cows knowing when it’s going to rain way before we do, and we got the sound guy to put a plastic rain-mate hat on a cow. I remember Pete pulling the van over in Chorley, and me stopping a woman to ask, ‘Is this the way to Amarillo?’ She didn’t really know, so I tried to help by asking if she knew Marie, who was waiting for me? No. ‘There are church bells ringing?’ ‘Sorry, love, no.’
We picked up a hitchhiker, who was a friend of Peter’s called Barrington, who was a children’s entertainer/magician. I’d fallen asleep and woke up to find this crazy man making balloon animals and acting unbalanced in the van. We dumped him somewhere around Lancaster.
Peter went crazy after eating a family pack of Opal Fruits and overdosing on the mountain of E numbers contained therein – and I mean proper crazy. We stopped as dusk was falling and parked on a pub car park that had a great view of the Reebok Stadium in the distance. We sat on the roof of the camper van and Peter went off on one – I paraphrase – ‘Concrete and Steel, Man’s achievements, towering, rising magnificently,’ he raved on, inspired for minutes, pointing into the distance, where I missed the focus of his eulogy.
‘ASDA?’ I asked.
It’s quite a nice little programme, but a lot of the comedy was sacrificed in the edit for sweeping, moody, panoramic shots of the beautiful Lancashire and Cumbrian countryside. I think I’ve probably got one of the few copies of the programme still in existence.
That Peter Kay Thing
PETER WAS ASKED to take part in Channel 4’s Comedy Lab and he’d had an idea that he’d like to write a spoof documentary set in a motorway service station. This, of course, went on to become The Services and was the first time that we got to see Peter’s remarkable acting skills.
A group of us went on a fact-finding mission to the services at Rivington, which involved sitting in the restaurant and eavesdropping on conversations, observing the punters and bouncing ideas about. Peter also canvassed ideas from family, friends and colleagues to add to the research and his own pile of ideas. While lying on a beach on holiday in Greece, I had an idea that the boss of the services should be a woman called Pearl. I had this line in my head which was in typical documentary-speak and was something like, ‘But they were only a cloud on Pearl’s horizon.’ (I think the ‘they’ were a group of French tourists whose coach, I suggested, should stop off on their trip to the Lake District, before setting off again – with a couple missing). Peter was reluctant to drag it up as Pearl, initially thinking it might be too Dick Emery and that it should feel real, but I remember saying that if it was played ‘straight’ and the make-up and costume were top class, he’d create a great character, which he did.
There’s so much to like abut The Services, from the Chorley FM DJ in the car park (it was originally to be Bolton FM) to the country-andwestern-obsessed coach driver. I remember that when it aired, the late great John Peel wrote a great review in the Radio Times, and even though I’d only contributed a little, I was really chuffed – and thrilled for Peter, who wrote the bulk of it and was brilliant in it.
Channel 4 unsurprisingly loved The Services and asked Peter for more of the same. He suggested a series of stand-alone spoof documentaries in the same style, and they commissioned what was to become That Peter Kay Thing. The title was chosen because people would often forget the name of a programme they had recently viewed and would refer to it in this way – ‘Did you see that Peter Kay thing last night?’
He had most of the ideas in his head – and they included an ice-cream van war, a lad who worked in a bingo hall, another who worked as a steward at the MEN Arena (from his personal experience), Leonard, the oldest paper boy in Britain, and a talent show at a working men’s club. The final episode, ‘Lonely at the Top’, arose out
of the ‘In the Club’ episode and documented the rise and fall of the vocal duo Park Avenue, who won the talent search in the first episode.
Peter formalized the writing partnership, asking Neil and I to co-write the series with him. Peter gave us the briefs and we went away and created characters and storylines and dialogue. Neil sent his on disk and spoke to Peter by phone, while I spent nearly every lunchtime round at Peter’s house, which was only a five-minute drive away from the General Hospital (yes, I was still working there full-time!). I typed up all my ideas and dialogue and we discussed them over a brew, and once he had collated the material, he assembled it into an episode and we would revise that until we were happy with it.
We all contributed in different measure to each episode. I didn’t have a lot of stuff in the ‘Ice Cream Cometh’ or ‘The Arena’, but contributed a good deal in terms of ideas, character and dialogue to ‘Leonard’, ‘In the Club’, ‘Eyes Down’ and ‘Lonely at the Top’. My favourite episodes are ‘Leonard’ and, maybe surprisingly, ‘Lonely at the Top’. I loved the songs we wrote for Marc Park: the insensitive, crass ‘African Tears’ and ‘Christmas 2000’.
I really enjoyed this creative process, especially having the luxury of knowing that the show had definitely been commissioned and was going to be made. As well as collaborating on the writing, Peter and I went out on fact-finding missions. We spent an evening at Gala Bingo, Chorley and visited quite a few working men’s clubs, including a couple of really big ones – Horwich RMI and Deane Conservative Club (or ‘Connie Club’, as they’re known round our way). I also managed to wangle us an invite to a regional concert secretaries’ meeting, which turned out to be a brilliant source of material. We gathered loads of information here, which in turn generated a massive amount of ideas, which we included in the show. All helped to mould Peter’s character Brian Potter.
Once we’d finished the series and Channel 4 had accepted it, Peter had to assemble a production team. He got Ivan Douglass on board as producer, Lisa White as associate producer and Andrew Gillman as director. Peter then surprised me by asking me to play the part of club compère Jerry ‘The Saint’ Sinclair.
I was reticent at first, because I’d never acted outside pantomimes and a few appearances with the Church Road Am-Dram group (which later became known as Phoenix Theatre – how weird a coincidence was that to become?) in Bolton. He persuaded me that I could do it and, having given it a little thought, I agreed – mainly because I loved the character that we’d created and I felt I ‘knew’ him, both from helping to develop him on paper and having seen various incarnations of him on my travels through the wonderful world of the working men’s clubs.
Channel 4, however, were less convinced – and insisted that I audition for the part. I was deflated at first, but then common sense kicked in and I thought it was a good idea. I didn’t want people to think that I’d got the part because I co-wrote the show, plus I still had an element of self-doubt. Auditions were held at a hotel in Bolton. I turned up at the appointed time and auditioned for Jerry … I got the part and surprised myself.
At least I wasn’t the only one on set with limited acting experience. Peter had the inspired idea to cast most of the main characters from friends and fellow stand-up comedians from the Manchester circuit, most of whom had never acted before. The result was that the cast produced raw, ‘real’ and believable performances.
‘In the Club’ was the first episode to be filmed. We took over Farnworth Veterans’ Club, which wasn’t too far from the hospital. It was a fantastic experience and worked really well in the mockumentary style, as it featured the run-up to and performance of the ‘Talent Trek’ final, ‘the biggest talent show in clubland’. The talent show was typical of all those I’d seen in my time, especially contestants Mark Park and Cheryl Avenue, who together were ‘Park Avenue’.
Jerry was ‘the compère without compare’ and it was a big night for him – even more so with the film crew in attendance. He arrived from work, still wearing his dusty overalls because Jerry worked in bricks. He never meant to get into bricks; he fell into bricks. And bricks get in your blood; if you cut him in half, you’d find ‘Accrington’ written all the way through him – guess where I got that from?
Jerry sang with typical club backing of keyboard and drums. Singing was a real test for me because I hate singing in public, even karaoke, so having to get onstage in front of the crew was nerve-wracking enough, quite apart from looking the part as Jerry and carrying off the performance in front of the audience. Now, yes, I do know that Jerry isn’t the best singer in the world, but he had to be a half-convincing vocalist/ compère and I think he pulls it off … just. Backstage, Brian Potter and Jerry reflected on the many acts they’d seen come and go through the club and how they’d changed when they’d achieved stardom: ‘The higher a monkey climbs, the more you can see its arse.’
The series was very well received and we couldn’t have asked for better reviews; Alison Graham in the Radio Times became a huge champion of the series, which helped a great deal. It was all a little surprising, really, because when you become involved in the creation of characters and storylines and commit yourself to the research and writing, it sort of becomes a job, if you know what I mean. You do it the best you can and don’t give much thought to how it’s going to turn out. This was especially true in my case because this was the first big thing I’d helped to create, and when I saw it brought to life on the television and recognized how good it was, for so many reasons it was a shock to the system. A huge, pleasurable, emotional, ‘ohmigod!’ type of shock.
We were all so proud when the series won a British Comedy Award in 2000 – for Best New Comedy. The three of us went down to London and stayed in a fancy ‘boutique’ hotel (i.e. small and pricey), and dressed up in black tie as advised for the event. Peter made his entrance in a bright purple suit that was to become a bit of a trademark, with a ‘How are you?!’
Looking around the room, I saw most of my old and new comedy heroes, together with many other stars from the comedy world. Caroline and Craig and Sue Johnston from The Royle Family were on a nearby table; there was Rob Brydon, Alistair McGowan, Ronnie Barker – I sat on the next table to Ronnie Barker! Victoria Wood was there and the brilliant Alan Bennett; Bruce Forsyth walked by my table and I was such a fan, I had to speak to him. I stood up abruptly and said, like a complete nerd, ‘I just wanted to say how much of a fan I am and thank you for all the enjoyment you’ve given me.’ He was very gracious and thanked me and walked away. I sat down totally happy – until I realized how cheesy that sounded.
When we were announced as Best New TV Comedy, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t feel my legs – but we had to go on stage to collect the award from Richard E. Grant. Peter made a speech, Neil said a few words … and I said another gushing, nerdy thing to Richard E. Grant about Withnail and I, and he smiled.
At the aftershow party, I was totally star-struck – and although a lot of nice people said lots of nice things, I answered in a stunned, monosyllabic fashion. It was quite a surreal night and it all went by in a happy, crazy blur.
Decision Time
AFTER THE HUGE success of That Peter Kay Thing, Channel 4 naturally wanted more. They suggested that we develop one of the six episodes of That Peter Kay Thing and turn it into a full series.
The show that stuck out as having the most potential was ‘In The Club’, being as it was populated by a great mix of characters, ranging from the officious Brian Potter and his stooge Jerry, through Holy Mary, to Les Alanos and Max and Paddy the bouncers. Add in a couple of ‘Kennys’, one young and a bit dim and the other older and a habitual liar, and introduce a mullet-sporting Neil Fitzmaurice as the fab DJ ‘Ray Von’ and his catchphrase ‘Shabba’ … and potentially you have comedy gold.
Personally, I now had a major decision to make. I thought that it wouldn’t be fair to take my annual leave from the hospital in regular blocks of half-days in order to write and appear in the new series (as I h
ad done for That Peter Kay Thing), as it would disrupt the smooth running of the department – and so what were my options? At first, it seemed a black-and-white decision. I could continue with my successful career in Biomedical Science (by now I was a Chief Biomedical Scientist) or I could gamble, sacrifice my thirty-two years of hard work and dedication and give it all up for a career in the volatile world of light entertainment. One thing was clear: I couldn’t do both – or could I?
A thought struck me. One of the senior staff in another lab had recently been granted a one-year career break to travel the world, with the guarantee that his job would be kept open for him to return to in twelve months’ time. I took my copy of Personnel Policies down from the shelf and turned to the relevant chapter – and there it was. Senior staff with so many years’ service could apply for a career break, with the guarantee that their job would be waiting for them after the agreed period.
I arranged a meeting with our personnel officer for clarification of the rule and any conditions that might apply. I told him exactly what I wanted to do in my year off and he confirmed that if I obtained approval from both my Consultant Haematologist and Senior Chief Biomedical Scientist, there were no obstacles in my taking the career break as outlined. He wished me the best of luck and I quickly sought meetings with my bosses and both my Consultant and Senior Chief approved the career break. Result! I handed in my required letter of notice.
Hang on, though, what’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster? No, it’s a Clinical Director and he’s a Biochemist – smell the Old Spice? Note the corduroy and the balaclava? He informs me that he is rejecting my application for a career break because taking a year off to perform comedy is absolutely not the reason the scheme was implemented. I tell him that my Consultant and Senior Chief have approved my application, which has now been approved by Personnel. He says that he can override the decision and that my application is officially rejected.