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

The Lancashire Hotpots

February 2009


THEY revisit the musical comedy that was prevalent in the folk clubs during the 60s and 70s. You get the idea from the song titles: Chav, The Girl From Bargain Booze, eBay 'Eck, Bogoff, Chippy Tea, I Heart YouTube and I Met A Girl On MySpace.
They are The Lancashire Hotpots and after enjoying word-of-mouth success on MySpace, ended up with plays on Radio 1 and MTV and a tour last year with Paddy McGuinness.
"It's the most fun you can have and be paid," says Bernard Thresher, who is joined in the Hotpots by Dickie Ticker, Bob Wriggles and Willie Eckerslike
"Are you suggesting they are not our real names?"
He adds: "It's about time we had something that, instead of being about stupid haircuts and looking dead serious in arty videos, it's about having a laugh and a bit of a pint."
Not they haven't tried that already. Three of the Hotpots were in a rave band, playing guitars, synths and an electronic drum kit.
"We played warehouses at six in the morning. It was a right laugh but after a while you get tired of thinking that actually no-one is listening. Because they're off their heads and don't know what their own name is. People who come to the gigs don't know their own names either but it's because they're a bit old."
The eureka moment came to Dickie, he says.
"He was sat on the toilet and the idea dropped if you will. The first song, I Met A Girl On MySpace, was uploaded on to their own MySpace page and so it began.
They recently released a second album Pot Sounds – the title and sleeve a pun on the Beach Boys' classic Pet Sounds.
The Lancashire Hotpots, who return to the Rescue Rooms tomorrow after a gig as part of the Dot To Dot Festival, greet each audience with a shout of "Owdoo cockers." But are they as broad with their accents by day?
"Well I live in the West Midlands now so if I talked that broad all the time no-one would know what I was saying. It's nice to get in the full swing of things of an evening."
By day, three of the band are college lecturers. Bernard is a fork lift truck driver now living in Coventry.
All are in their 20s and 30s. The gigs have been attracting a broad range of ages, he says.
"We get a lot of people, who are of an older age, who turn up to a gig and say 'Is there anywhere to sit down?'"
They've yet to meet any stars on their travels though he's proud of a story that Paddy McGuinness told him.
"He was compering a concert at the O2 Arena and he was with Shaun Ryder, The Kaiser Chiefs and The Feeling at the side of the stage while The View were playing. And they were all singing Chippy Tea. I thought, that's a belter that. I'm taking that with me."