Dave Spikey

February 2012

My Weekend

I’M working tonight so I’ll be taking it easy today. I would normally go to the gym on a Saturday morning but I won’t because I’m injured. I broke a few ribs falling on the ice.

I hate the gym but I’m trying to lose weight. I always end up sat opposite the bloke on the thigh-buster with the perished shorts.

If the weather’s OK I’ll go biking, which I’ve got into in the past couple of years.

We live in a lovely part of Lancashire, so if it’s a nice day we’ll bike out for breakfast or lunch and do a few miles along the canal or over the moors.

Then to get me in the mood for the show tonight I’ll probably be watching Sky Sports to see how Bolton Wanderers have gone on against Chelsea.

On Sunday mornings I’ll get a paper, then we’ll have a walk to one of the local pubs. We have some lovely local pubs around here that do real ale.

We have three grown-up children between us but none together, even though we’ve been together for 30 or so years.

I’m not a grandad yet. None of them have shown any interest. My son’s a musician, my daughter is a deputy head teacher and my step-daughter is the head of cardiology at the Royal Albert Infirmary in Wigan.

I’m no good in the cinema because I get irritated and it gives the wife a headache. Something ridiculous will happen and I’ll lose my temper. Like George Clooney in Ocean’s 11 when he said he won’t go on the heist. Of course he’ll go. At the end he takes his mask off to reveal it’s him and I’m standing up in the cinema: ‘You see, I told you!’ I’m a nightmare.

I’ll go on Sky Movies now and again usually to watch the old films, with Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Cagney and Cary Grant.

I prefer to read. Which is good because I present The TV Book Club (on More4) and I’ll have ten books to read. I love crime thrillers. Harlan Coben is my favourite. Lee Childs is another. The hero in his books is a guy called Jack Reacher and he’s a mountain of a man but they’ve just cast Tom Cruise in the film.

Because of The TV Book Club I get all types of books to read, some I’d never normally pick up. In the last series I had one called Scared Hearts, set in 16th Century post-renaissance Italy where a girl has been imprisoned in a convent. Will she get out? I don’t really care.

But I had to read it for the show and I couldn’t put it down. A brilliant book, like The Shawshank Redemption in a convent.

I’ve lived in my village since before I started doing comedy and I’m still mates with the same people. They’re builders and painters and decorators and they go in the pub early doors for a couple of pints after work. Me and the missus will meet up with them and have a couple of drinks, then come home about eight o’clock and read.

There’s nothing much on the telly. Although we do watch Holby (City) and Casualty because we like shouting out at all the medical inconsistencies. The missus worked in blood transfusion while I was in haematology.

We have a bit of a quiz and guess what is going to happen to the people at the beginning. There are some easy ones like the bloke in the long scarf mending the combine harvester. Then there’s the bloke trying to get rid of a wasp nest with a firework. But there’s always an old woman with a sponge and we never know what’s going to happen there.

I like all sorts of music but contemporary jazz sounds like a one man band who has fallen over and he’s trying to get up again. I do like swing jazz, reggae, ska, classical, Cee-Lo Green, Adele, Gladys Knight and the Pips... I always wanted to be a Pip.

A perfect weekend? I’d take all my mates down to Bolton Wanderers in one of the suites and we’d have a slap up meal watching them beat Arsenal three-nil.

Dave Spikey appears at Just The Tonic at The Forum in The Cornerhouse on Thursday April 19. Tickets are £13 and £16.50, call 0115 910 0009 or www.justthetonic.com.

The TV Book Club is on More4 tomorrow at 7.10pm.

Paddy McGuinness

October 2011

HIS career started playing a doorman on his buddy Peter Kay’s hit Channel 4 comedy Phoenix Nights. These days Patrick McGuinness is a prime-time TV show host, occasional This Morning presenter, adventurer, author and stand-up comedian.

“It keeps me out of trouble,” says the 37-year-old, who admits that it’s the ITV show Take Me Out that has been his biggest gig so far.

“It usually attracts between four and seven million people, which is mad,” he laughs.

Even though he’d been on our TV screens for around 15 years, he noticed a significant change in the amount of attention he was getting after the first series of Take Me out.

“I’ve been used to it around where I live in Bolton but when it started happening in London, that really hit me.”

Why has he never made the move to London?

“Yes, it’s where the work is so you’ve got to go down to London but it’s only two hours on the train. You can do your work and be back for teatime.”

Unlike Kay, when McGuinness left school he had ambitions to be a lab technician.

“The subjects I was only any good at in school were science but I did a diploma at college and realised it was the most boring job ever. So I worked on a building site, I was a silver service waiter, in an engineering factory, a bread making factory, leisure centres...

“You learn a lot of good life experiences doing jobs like that so I’m glad I did all that.”

While still doing odd jobs around Bolton, his school friend recruited him to appear in his series of comedy dramas for Channel 4 called That Peter Kay Thing. That led to two series of Phoenix Nights.

After its huge success, he and Kay co-wrote and co-starred as the club doormen in the spin-off series, Max And Paddy’s Road To Nowhere.

Rumours that Kay had finished writing two more series of Phoenix Nights are, as far as McGuinness is concerned, false.

“These rumours come about because Peter starts them for his own amusement,” he jokes.

“I know nothing about that.”

Since then McGuinness has mixed stand-up comedy with a varied career on the small screen.

He’s fronted an advertising campaign for Greggs, appeared on Sky’s The Match and Inside Wayne Rooney, played the lead in E4’s Chuck Stryker: The Unknown Stuntman, guest hosted The Paul O’Grady Show and This Morning, presented Raiders Of The Lost Archive on ITV1, joined Rory McGrath on a roadtrip for Rory And Paddy’s Great British Adventure and even partnered Keith Lemon on Let’s Dance For Comic Relief.

But nothing has given him as much exposure as Take Me Out.

“I even get a game of Take Me Out going on stage during the show,” he says of his latest tour, which comes to the Capital FM Arena on Friday.

“Because they are big venues I want it to be visually good to look at, so it’s a bit special in that respect.”

Such as?

“Let’s just say there are a few tricks up the sleeve.”

It’s his biggest tour and he admits the nerves are there.

“If you’re not nervous then there’s something wrong.

“On the last tour I did about 60 nights and when I went on stage totally relaxed I just couldn’t remember what I was saying.

“Once you lose that nervous energy you can become a bit complacent. It’s good to be nervous.”

He married Liverpool model Christine Martin in the summer but resisted the magazine deals which were offered.

“Some things are private,” he says, simply.

“And you can’t tell your nan that she can’t take a photo because of the contract you are under, she wouldn’t understand.”

He adds: “Although one magazine did superimpose our heads on to someone else’s bodies at a wedding for their front cover.

“So a lot of people will have thought ‘Oh they’ve done a magazine deal’”.

It was a big family occasion in Cheshire and married life is all right with him.

“Everything’s just the same, really. I don’t feel any different. We’ve been together for years.

“The only real difference is the ring on the finger. It’s nice. I like it.”

The Paddy McGuinness Saturday Night Live Tour comes to the Capital FM Arena on Friday October 14. Tickets are £25, call 08444 124 624 or visit www.capital.com

Paddy McGuinness

May 2011

I STILL live in Bolton. I like London and I like going down there but in my game it’s nice to get home and get out of the madness. You can immerse yourself in work and lose sight of what’s important, which is your friends and family. I’ll always stay here.

Do I go out drinking on a Friday night? I’m 37 now. You’re asking the wrong man. I bet you were thinking “ooh, I’ll get some good stuff here!”. If you’ve had asked me that 15 years ago it would have been a different interview. There’s no going out with my mates any more.

I do see them once a week because we play football together and we have a couple of pints after but the days of nightclubs are long gone.

I’m more likely to go out for a meal and have a few quiet beers.

I used to have a football team, we’d play Sunday league but it just got a bit full-on having to be there every weekend with me job. So we just have a kickabout. It keeps you fit.

That’s the trick with keeping fit, to do something you enjoy.

I used to work in a gym and I’d see people come in and they hated it. I thought, do something you enjoy.

Having said that, I’m struggling to keep the weight off. I bought some shorts the other day for me holidays and I was arguing with the bloke in the shop. They can’t be a 34, they’re a bit tight. I begrudgingly got a 36.

On a Friday night I’ll have a sit-in with the missus and watch a bit of telly with a Chinese. Or we’ll have a few friends round.

It’s just me and the missus. We’ve no kids. We have a dog. She’s just been in for an op on her leg. She’s OK but she’s barking the place down.

The first thing I’ll do on a Saturday morning is get a cup of tea and flick on @Sky Sports@ to see what’s going on in the world of football. I’m a @Bolton@ fan and I was at Wembley for the semi-final of the FA Cup. Devastated. It’s like we didn’t show up.

I don’t watch them every week because of my job. To be honest, football coverage on TV is so good, half of the time you’re better off watching it at home.

I was over at Forest’s ground a while back doing an advert for @Victor Chandler. @He sponsors them, doesn’t he? I liked it because when I’ve been to Nottingham before, you sort of do your gig and you’re out. You never get a chance to have a look round.

And I had a really good look around the ground and behind the scenes. All the Brian Clough stuff and the European Cup – it were cracking.

The only programme I’ll have on series link on Sky+ is @Match of the Day. @

Other than that, if I’m flicking through the channels late at night I get drawn in to these bizarre documentaries about driving across ice lakes in Canada or summat like that.

I used to go the cinema a lot but not these days. Half of them are on DVD within a week, anyway.

There are a lot of pirate DVDs going around. My mate works on a building site and he says an old bloke comes on there every Friday with all these DVDs.

And I remember once I was in London, walking down Oxford Street, and this bloke stopped me and said “DVDs?” I thought I’ll buy a few but then I saw my own live DVD and I was disgusted. I don’t mind with Hollywood blockbusters but don’t take the bread out of my mouth.

There’s everything on my iPod from @Jane McDonald@ to @Public Enemy.@ There was a song that I heard@ Beyonce@ do and I was trying to find it on iTunes. I thought I’d found it, started to download it and it were bloody Jane McDonald. Yeah, that’s my excuse.

I don’t get time to read. If I go on holiday I’ll take an autobiography but that’s about my limit. @Peter Kay’s? @I’ve not read one (laughs). He keeps sending them to me but I just don’t have time to read them.

It’s the same with going out to gigs – there just aren’t the hours in the day.

I’m doing a new series of @Take Me Out@ this year and I’m hosting another ITV show called @71 Degrees North.@ I’ve just come back from a month in the Arctic filming that. It’s beautiful, it’s bucket list stuff. That’ll be on in September.

Then there’s the tour. Comedians doing arenas used to be a big thing but these days it’s the norm. That’s the way comedy has progressed. It’s to be expected.

On a perfect weekend it would be sunny and we’d be in the garden with family and friends having a barbecue.

The Paddy McGuinness Saturday Night Live Tour comes to the Capital FM Arena on Friday October 14. Tickets are £25, call 08444 124 624 or visit www.capitalfmarena.com

Review: Peter Kay, Capital FM Arena

February 3 2011

IT has been a while. Twelve years, he tells us, since he last did a stand-up show in Nottingham. That was at Just The Tonic when the club was housed at the Old Vic in Fletchergate.

Back then Peter Kay was on the cusp of becoming Britain’s biggest-selling/best known/most successful comedian.
But it has been a while since he spearheaded the comedy charge. Remember, he was probably the first British comedian to turn what was the preserve of the comedy club into its current arena-filling status.
But, of late, the likes of Lee Evans, Ricky Gervais and Michael McIntyre have staked their claim as Britain’s biggest and best.
So where has the Bolton comic been these past few years?
Watching telly, judging by the bulk of his set at the Capital FM Arena on Thursday night, the first of three 7,500 capacity shows.
He ponders the lunacy of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Come Dine With Me, Grand Designs, Secret Millionaire and Embarrassing Bodies. In the process he nails what the rest of us have been thinking. It’s the sort of observational comedy that has people nudging their partners: “You do that!”
There’s the visit to the dentist, online shopping, DVD box sets, teachers sending kids to sit at “the thick table”, Sky+, not complaining in restaurants and the wheelie bin rota.
It’s a knack that has other comedians kicking themselves that they hadn’t thought of it first. One that makes comedy snobs think he’s actually not that skilled, too simplistic, too obvious.
It’s like his opening, raising the house lights and training a hand-held camera on the audience. Yes, it’s simple but it’s superbly effective.
As ever, his comedy is rooted in the past: Tenko; questioning his microphone “Is this on?”; and “a bit of blue for the dads”. There’s Mister Matey bubble bath and Imperial Leather soap. And his nana’s failure to grasp new technology (“this thiPhone”).
But Kay is savvy enough to deal with a break from the set when someone in the crowd kicks off (we don’t know why). He stops the show, turns up the house lights and commentates on the security staff removing him from the arena.
It gets the biggest cheer. Well, that and his mention of adopted catchphrase “garlic bread”.
Surprisingly, considering the current situation in Cairo, he doesn’t revisit one of other catchphrases, that of booking a holiday “t’Egypt”.
He’s occasionally sweary and dips just once in to the non-PC material -- a two minute rant at the, erm, ‘travelling community’.
The main set finale of misheard song lyrics is once again so simple but so hilarious. And if you’re off to see him tonight, don’t leave early, the musical encore is a bit special.

Jason Manford, Nottingham Playhouse

November 9 2008

TV exposure is everything to a comedian. After years dropping in to the city’s Just The Tonic Comedy Club, a few seasons of captaining Channel 4’s 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Jason Manford is pulling in 600 people -- it may have been capacity if it wasn’t for the “Biblical” weather last night - to the Playhouse.
On the back of a scheduled slot on Tonight With Jonathan Ross, he’d extended his UK tour three months in to next Easter. A slot that, of course, is now not going to happen.
It’s a shame. Manford could be the next Peter Kay. And not just because he’s rotund and cherub-faced, from the North-West and tee-total.
Like Kay, he sources old school comedy that’s largely clean; Sleeping arrangements with the wife, road rage, the logic of mothers and ‘trying’ for a wee and toilet etiquette in the Gents’.
And he gives great value, doing 40 minutes of Q&A after the allotted two hours.
Maybe it’s the early start, the weather or that it’s Sunday night but if there is a quibble with tonight’s show it’s the audience not being vocal enough. Apart from “Basil Brush” that is - a guy with a wild but random laugh that seems to disturb rather than inspire Manford.
It’s where he is at his best - sparring with the crowd but aside from a driving test flirt there’s little for him to feed off.
That said, he could widen his appeal by keeping away from laddism -- doesn’t wash his hands after a toilet stop, football, porn!?
Excuse the awful pun, but I'll give him 8/10.