Following on from watching TPKT earlier this week I've starting watching all the episodes from series one of Phoenix Nights which I'm now halfway through.
Episode one focuses on the opening of the club where one disaster leads to another including a fruit machine based on the film Das Boot with German money inside it, the bingo machine being stolen, a power cut and a performance by a racist folk band.
Peter returns in the roles of club owner Brian Potter and bouncer Max and there's the return of characters such as Jerry St Clair, Les and Alan the club's house band known as "Les Alanos" and we are introduced to characters such as Kenny Sr who's always bullshitting to a hilarious extent, ex dodgems operator and club DJ Ray Von played by co-writer Neil Fitzmaurice who made the term "Shabba!" part of our vocabulary, and Young Kenny played by Justin Moorhouse who could have been given a lot more lines as he was brilliant recently in the Ivan Brackenbury pilot for BBC Radio 2.
There are guest appearances including "the legend" Roy Walker playing himself as the special guest opening the club and has an awkward situation where Brian notices some paint on the back of his coat. When Holy Mary takes it to get cleaned she notices a label on there saying "Property of Southern Television" although it would make more sense if it said TVS instead.
Having said that one of Roy's fellow stand ups from "The Comedians" Bernard Manning presented his own gameshow for Southern Television in 1980 by the name of "Under Manning" although unlike Roy, and Jim Bowen he didn't make as successful a transition from comedian to gameshow host. I'd imagine that show was one of the reasons Southern lost their franchise in that same year.
Then again Jim Bowen even says so himself that he was "crap" at hosting Bullseye but that was part of the fun of it.
Also making a guest appearance in the first episode was Tim Healy from Auf Weidershen Pet playing one of the members of folk band "Half A Shilling" who did a song about getting black holy communion shoes instead of white ones called "Send The Buggers Back" and went to the tune of "Morningtown Ride", Ed Stewart's theme from Junior Choice on Radio 1 many years ago which I believe is returning to Radio 2 again this Christmas.
I still find that song by the folk band very catchy despite it's overtones and even Roy Walker can be heard singing it near the end of the episode.
But one of the funniest lines comes near the end involving bouncers Max and Paddy where Max has returned from the chippy and falls over prompting Paddy to utter
"He's bought the chips, and he's dropped them! Where's me tomato sauce?"
Speaking of Paddy, it was the man himself who suggested that every episode should end with an audition in front of the team as the credits play which was genius. The funniest one was a man wearing just underpants in the shape of an elephant with a suggestive looking trunk, dancing to The Toy Dolls "Nelly The Elephant" prompting the whole staff to shout "NEXT!".
However in episode 5 there's a rather ugly looking dancing couple who Brian and co warm to unusually but they're still pretty funny. Just over a year later they appeared in the first series of Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway in a section of the show called "Make Ant Laugh" where an act was given a minute to try and make the taller one of the duo burst out laughing as he's always percieved as the "miserable one" out of the pair.
I can remember in plenty of interviews with the pair saying that when Declan first met Ant in series 2 of Byker Grove he thought was "a miserable bugger".
Back to Phoenix Nights and Episode 2 is probably my least favourite of the series although it does feature the debut of the glokenspiel based theme tune which ended up becoming a popular ringtone.
In this episode Brian brought a bucking bronco to replace a dodgy snooker table which inspired them to put on a Wild West night involving a real horse coming into the club which ended up trying to have sex with the bronco, and a shooting contest that ended up in a riot.
Episode 3 however is probably the most controversial as it features the return of Keith Lard, the sort of character I'd love to chin. He's still more or less the same since his appearance in "That Peter Kay Thing" with no compassion and an over-zealous nature towards fire safety to the point of starting fires himself.
However this was the final straw for Mr Keith Laird and complained to Channel 4 after seeing the episode go out and rightly so. I still can't believe that Peter denies the fact the character was based on him as it's all down to the name and the job of the character, and it's similarities to the real man. Possibly with the exception of anything involving dogs.
The scene were he gives the fire safety seminar in Den Perry's Banana Grove club is genius with lines such as;
Keith: "You know what my biggest fear is?"
Audience member: "Rabies?"
(Audience laugh)
Keith: "No, ignorance. You ever smelt burning flesh son?"
Audience member: "Yeah"
On that same subject we finally get to see Den Perry as played by ex Chain Letters host Ted Robbins. Rather bizarrely fellow co-star and writer Dave Spikey hosted a series of the Tyne Tees daytime gameshow as well where Peter Kay wrote some of his jokes, so it's odd to see both of them together.
After Keith shuts down the club, Brian persuades him to come back and reveals a Photoshopped image of Keith's head on a naked man sharing a bed with a dog which was made with the help of Ray Von.
The problem with the character is that Peter seems to change his voice halfway through the episode to a slightly deeper one which isn't as funny mainly because of the way he pronounces the word "fyrre" earlier on.
The evening goes on as normal with the special guest being dodgy psychic by the name of Clinton Baptiste as played by Alex Lowe.
I recognised Alex from the 11 O'Clock Show on Channel 4 where he used to do spoof charity annoucements which would always end with "Have a heart. Come on, Don't be a cu-"
He also used to present a show on XFM in London around the same time.
I reckon the tension between some of the characters is genuine with the actors in real life, especially between Brian and Jerry, as well as Spencer the wannabe DJ from the youth club in episode one played by Daniel Kitson who returned in the second series applying for a job as a barman.
As mentioned before, Daniel went on to say that Phoenix Nights was his least favourite moment in his comedy (if you can call it that) career.
I'm about to start watching the remaining three episodes and like The Office, I think they're better than the first three.
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