The Dickhead List: Peter Kay(‘s Fans) by shoutingatco.ws
Hitler’s speeches are almost never translated into English. Whether he’s banging on about the price of corn or picking another group to eliminate, most people don’t know. We just see him on his podium, bleating on, while a group of people who don’t know any better eat up every single word.
Which brings us to Peter Kay.
We’re really not sure how he does it, but he seems to have a remarkable ability to get on stage and literally just list brands, TV shows and board games from yesteryear, and his crowd will whoop, applaud and laugh in recognition.
Mouse Trap. That’s an old game. And Pie in the Sky. That was on the telly.
We sat down with Peter’s latest DVD, the hilariously titled “The Tour that Didn’t Tour – Tour”. We’ll be honest, we lasted just 17 stony-faced minutes before turning it off.
He opens by stumbling over while being lifted onto the stage, and then his microphone is set at the wrong height. Obvious shit that happens every single night, yet the crowd lap it up. Our problem isn’t with Kay – he can make a pretty good living from churning this shit out – but with the morons who buy his “Garlic Bread” t-shirts and “Booked it, Packed it, Fucked off” towels.
The observations are bland, obvious and pretty much the same as every pub bore in the country. His mum doesn’t understand new things! Sky+, eh, wossallthaabout? iPods, eh, wossallthaabout? He banged on for bloody ages about people texting into work sick (wossallthaabout, eh?), and not using their “phoning in sick” voice. Wossallthaabout, eh?! Peter notices things! Peter remembers things!
We just don’t get it. We don’t get why his false childhood memories (rode around on a Chopper, did you Pete? Course you did.) are getting this sort of reaction.
The man himself seems like a bit of a shit, too: Famously, he released the same show on two different DVDs, in two consecutive years (just in time for Christmas).
His book, too, is lazily written self-plagiarised guff:
The first time you hear Kay’s descriptions, they evoke fond memories, but the fact he’s been peddling the same lines for more than a decade robs it of much interest.
And it is the same material, too, not just similar. Here he is in The Book That’s More Than Just a Book – Book talking about meeting a coach driver called Terry:
‘They’re a bugger for the rulebook, coach drivers. “We’ve got a chemical toilet on board but if you’re going to use it, no solids. And don’t even think about touching the emergency exit at the back – it’s not a toy. We had one young lad bounce out en route to Gladiators. He’s now fed through a straw, so think on.”’
Which sounds remarkably similar to this passage from his 2006 book The Sound Of Laughter about a school coach trip to France, in which the driver warned: ‘Don’t even think about using the toilet on board unless it’s an emergency, and even then, if you do, no solids. I don’t want any of you messing with the emergency exit at the back of the coach. I had one young lad fall out en route to Legoland and he’s now fed through a straw, so think on.’
Or consider this typically trademark-heavy paragraph about his school dinners: ‘My mum prescribed packed lunches for most of of my school life in an effort to keep my weight down. It probably would have worked if she hadn’t given me a daily dose of two spam sandwiches, a Munch Bunch yoghurt with a packet of Salt n Shake and a Highland toffee all neatly jammed inside a Miami Vice lunch box.’
And from The Sound Of Laughter: ‘I tried packed lunches for a few months but they weren’t for me. I never found two spam sandwiches and a Munch Bunch yoghurt very filling. There’s only so much you can cram into an A-Team lunch box.’ In that book he got his Highland toffee from the tuck shop.
[Chortle]
At times it feels like people would be fine with him getting up on stage and reading out the rules of Monopoly. “The equipment consists of a board, 2 dice, tokens, 32 houses and 12 Hotels. There are 16 Chance and 16 Community Chest cards, 28 Title Deed card (one for each property), and play money.”
That or repeating GARLIC BREAD for three hours. Just saying it over and over. GARLIC BREAD. GARLIC. BREAD. GARLIC BREAD.
GARLIC. BREAD.
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The real tragedy of Peter Kay is that he’s clearly capable of producing great work- that Peter Kay thing and series 1 of phoenix nights were great. But then he realised that he could make far more money for zero effort with this stuff.
He could be worse…he could be the inexplicably successful Michael McIntyre. Or Rufus Hound. Or Russell Howard. Or Russell Brand. Or that other little tw@t called Russell who has a totally unfunny DVD out. Or – with the possible exception of Dara O’Briain – anyone off Mock the F***ing Week.
I saw Peter Kay do a preview in a small theatre for this tour early last year. I’m not really a fan but it was cheap and I was interested. I wasn’t expecting much but he really wasn’t all that terrible. There was a lot of hackneyed observartional material (such as the sky+ material and the texting in sick material mentioned above) but there was also a good chunk of very decent, very funny stand up comedy.
While it’s not my cup of tea, Kay does have a way of presenting simple observations about life in a friendly, personable way that makes people laugh and there is a skill to that which is much more obvious in a smaller venue. The problem is that he’s grown to such a mammoth performer that he tours in massive arena venues that take away any human element from his performance, especially on DVD.
The same is already happening to John Bishop, usually a highly critically acclaimed performer, his output is starting to look stale because his down-to-earth, working class tales and observations look downright strange in front of 40,000 people in the Wembley Arena.
Couldnt disagree more with this article. Peter Kay is a genius as his critically acclaimed tv series’ show. As for his stand up, he wouldnt sell out his huge tours if he didnt make thousands of people laugh. Most comedy is observational, especially in modern times, and yeh we can all name memories in the pub with our mates, but not with the wit, timing and execution of this extremely talented and funny northerner.