Book #5 for 2024: T.V. by Peter Kay
T.V.: Big Adventures on the Small Screen by Peter Kay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is Peter Kay's second autobiography, and reading it made me realise that I should also read his first one to see how that compares. This one focuses entirely on his television career to date.
The one thing I would change about this would be that I'd probably reduce the number of sections that are just exerpts from his own shows. I found it more interesting to read Kay's own thoughts about the shows that he was in, which almost felt like I was reading a DVD commentary at times, with some of the trivia he comes out with, including behind-the-scenes stories, and material he wished he'd included but which had to be cut for various reasons. Some of the best stories are from his early days in television; for example, when he appeared on a little-known comedy panel show called "Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment" (an early Graham Norton gig), he was surprised when he was sent all of the questions a week in advance so he could prepare.
There are not surprisingly whole chapters on his biggest successes: That Peter Kay Thing, Phoenix Nights and Car Share (with which he convinced co-start Sian Gibson to take up acting again, after she quit). He also mentions Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere, the Phoenix Nights spin-off. Surprisingly, he seems reasonably positive about it, despite it being panned by critics, but is more critical of the Doctor Who episode he appeared in (which regularly appears on the internet's worst episode lists, though personally I never thought it was that bad).
There is a whole chapter too about his cover of "Amarillo", in which he lip synched the whole Tony Christie song, which he reckons will be his legacy. While practically apologising for the appearance of the now notorious Jimmy Savile, he also mentions a fact that I didn't realise, that on the video when the late Ronnie Corbett trips over, that was for real. However, everyone, including Corbett, found it so funny, that it was kept in.
Kay also mentions other television shows that he made appearances in, like Little Britain. It was refreshing to see that he disagrees with all the woke-ism that caused several of Matt Lucas and David Walliams' characters to become "problematic". I was quite surprised too when I saw that he had a lot of respect for the late Bernard Manning, though acknowledging how increasingly racist he was becoming.
One of his anecdotes about meeting his comedy heroes involves his story about visiting Manning's house to discuss a possible role on Phoenix Nights, only for him to answer the door in his underwear, and at one point start urinating in his back garden. The story didn't really change my overall view of Bernard Manning, but was entertaining nonetheless for the shock value. Later on, Kay also includes a chapter about a number of letters sent between him and the late Ronnie Barker, including one that Barker wrote as his character Fletch from the classic "Porridge".
While some of the chapters felt almost like an episode guide to Peter Kay's TV shows, this felt like a really good nostalgia trip, enough to make me want to rewatch many of the programmes he mentions in this book.
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