I've now managed to reach almost halfway through the DVD of Peter Kay's spoof fly on the wall documentaries and if you compare it to his talent show spoof, it shows that back then the programmes were more of a showcase for actual comedy rather than overall send-up.
Starting off with the pilot set in The Services, the programme is predominantly character lead giving Peter the chance to show his versatility through his various characters.
I reckon the voice of ARC officer Alan reminds me a lot of Denis although Peter does tend to do quite a few Irish characters possibly because his mother Deidre comes from there. And whenever Peter does, or did her voice in his stand up act you can possibly tell that it was the inspiration for Geraldine.
The main storyline near the end is the arrival of erstwhile TV entertainer Bob Carolgees stopping off at the stations. After much preperation however it turns out that he's actually at the southbound services across the road meaning that the camera crew just miss him as he departs.
Bob ends up being mentioned at least once in every episode of "That Peter Kay Thing" although to be honest I only really remember Bob as the host of the second series of TVS's revival of the gameshow "Concentration" in 1990.
Bob had taken over from Nick Jackson who hosted the first series on Sunday evenings during the latter half of 1988 and Nick was probably best known at the time for being the voiceover on Catchphrase at the same time.
I used to get confused by his appearance in the end credits as it went out as;
"Host
Roy Walker
With the voice of
Nick Jackson"
Come to think of it I wouldn't know who's voice is more irritating although Nick was the equivalent of Peter Dixon at the time appearing as the voiceover on just about every gameshow that ITV broadcast in the late 80s early 90s.
His voice sounded more like an extra camp Dale Winton but I'd prefer him to Peter any day.
As Concentration fell into the same category of Catchphrase in our house at the time for obvious reasons, I can remember forgoing an episode on a Friday night in early 1990
as soon as the London Weekend Television ident appeared, and instead Dad put on an album by The Inspirational Choir.
Moving onto the main series itself and a few changes were made since the pilot as the episodes were now shot with a filmic look to make it more darker which worked brilliantly. With the Royle Family being a pioneer, I think a lot of comedy on television looks better when shot like that which even extends to programmes such as "Live At The Apollo" which happens to be produced by the same company who made TPKT, that being Open Mic, under the eye of comedian Jack Dee.
There was also the addition of Andrew Sachs as narrator who was the narrator on the BBC's "Children's Hospital" and back then was only really known for playing Manuel in Fawlty Towers.
How times have changed.
The first episode in the series was "In The Club" which was the benchmark for what was to become Phoenix Nights with most of the regular characters including Jerry St Clair as played by co-writer Dave Spikey, Kenny Sr, and Les the drummer from the club's house band "Les Alanos".
Peter was seen playing the roles of club secretary Brian Potter of course, Max one of the bouncers along with Paddy played by Peter's best mate Patrick McGuinness who ended up getting that character name as he found it easier to work with.
Although I reckon Patrick went on to be a good comedian and writer in his own right and should have been given a lot more than just an "additional material credit" on Phoenix Nights.
He was given a writers credit on the spin off "Max And Paddy's Road To Nowhere" although I wouldn't think that was as good as the original series despite having some hilarious moments.
Back to "The Club" and other characters played by Peter included Marc Park, a vocalist and bass guitarist in the musical duo "Park Avenue" with his girlfriend Cheryl Avenue taking part in the 1999 Talent Trek contest which forms the main story within the episode.
Paul Le Roy also makes a return appearance from the pilot, as the Chorley FM DJ with the catchphrase "Where The Listener Comes First" established right from the beginning and used in all of Peter's series up to Max And Paddy where the infamous slogan is read by Liza Tarbuck in spoof sponsor idents that top and tail each episode.
It's worth noting that the logo for the station used since "That Peter Kay Thing" is based on the logo that Century Radio used at the time for it's stations including the one in the North West. However they were shortly taken over by Capital that year and re-branded as Century FM with John Myers moving on to the Guardian Media Group and creating succesfull brands such as Real Radio and Smooth Radio.
Although John's now moved on, he managed to get back hold of the Century stations earlier this year and re-brand them to a similar format as Real Radio with identical jingles.
Anyway, as for the episode itself it contains many precursors to what would eventually become "Phoenix Nights" including references to rival club owner Den Perry who reccomends an act called "The Windy Dick" which is revealed at the end of the episode, and happens to be a performer at a children's Christmas party messing about with a long pink balloon sticking out from in between his legs.
It's also worth noting that the club in this episode is called "The Neptune" but visually it's not too different to that used in Phoenix Nights and it's also shown by having the Talent Trek contest itself done in front of a real audience with their reactions being completely genuine.
One of the jokes they attempted to do and carry on into the main series was the idea of Brian faking his disablity by climbing out of his wheelchair at certain points. However they decided to abandon that idea in the end, leaving it to Matt Lucas and David Walliams.
The original music is worth mentioning as well as composed by Tot Taylor who really gets to shine in this episode by providing convicing sounding "club" arrangements of popular songs including Park Avenue's medley starting off with "Let (Us) Entertain You", "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" and a medley of "Simply The Best" and Mousse T's "Horny". On the DVD however they had to cut out the last two songs for clearance reasons although it didn't ruin the episode overall.
I really think that Tot's music isn't regarded as well as it could have been with different variations of it being done where appropriate for certain episodes including one played by ice cream chimes in the episode "The Ice Cream Man Cometh".
However the music is put to good use on the DVD menu screens and he could have easily produced a good score for Phoenix Nights although composer Toni Baker's contribution to that series really was superb.
The second episode was "Eyes Down" set in a bingo hall with the main character being employee Patrick O'Neil who Peter has said is the character that most resembles him.
This is mainly because the episode is written from Peter's experience of working at a bingo hall himself and manages to show perfectly how it can be one of the worst jobs ever.
Other characters played by him in this episode include Rose, an OAP who plays bingo with her friend Theresa played by Beatrice Kelly and caller Tom Dale who comes on stage to the tune of PJ and Duncan's "Let's Get Ready To Rhumble".
And here comes another tangent as that song reminds me of my first few weeks at ASDA when at 4pm ASDA FM would play that very song to tell all the managers of each department to start "rumbling" on the shop floor which basically means moving every item to the very front of the shelves on each aisle.
Luckily they stopped using the song after a couple of months.
The episode was also infamous for the first appearance of one of Peter's more controversial characters, the over zealous fire and safety officer Keith Lard.
Keith being a rather tight person who is seen holding a seminar on fire safety with a habit of blasting a hand hold air horn at his audience if they start mucking about, and setting off the fire alarm at any given time.
However the character fell out of favour for an even worse reason due to the rumours that he "interfered with dogs".
After making a second appearance in the third episode of series 1 of Phoenix Nights, Channel 4 recieved a complaint from the similarly named Keith Laird who happens to be a fire safety officer in the North of England about the character in the series.
Peter Kay has denied it was based on him but I refuse to believe that at all due to the similar looks and personality traits.
However both Peter and Channel 4 had to apologise to him and gave him a settlement of £10,000 which was split between Mr Laird and various fire safety organisations.
Since that episode and the "Eyes Down" episode of TPKT have been broadcast they have had to flash up an apology at the end of the episode and this is included on the DVD.
Because of this it may be the case why the character hasn't appeared since although his name was seen on an engraving at the club in an episode of Max And Paddy's Road To Nowhere.
Oddly enough "Eyes Down" also happened to be the name of a BBC1 sitcom shown between 2003-2004 with Paul O'Grady playing a bingo caller with two of the co-stars being Neil Fitzmaurice and Beatrice Kelly who appeared in both TPKT and in Phoenix Nights.
But enough writing, I may as well continue watching the series starting off with what has to be my favourite one overall "The Ice Cream Man Cometh".
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