DVD review: Peter Kay Live – The Tour That Didn’t Tour Tour

When Peter Kay, the nation’s pre-McIntyre comedy sweetheart, announced his return to stand-up after a seven-year hiatus, the resulting tour was always destined to be a success.

What started as four shows soon became more, and the eventual 112-date juggernaut birthed its obligatory DVD in prime time for the Christmas “there’s-nothing-on-telly” market. The Tour That Doesn’t Tour Tour… Now On Tour… Now On DVD. The title is an air-quotes-quirky comedic rabbit-hole. Inception, narrated by Joe Pasquale.

Peter Kay’s detractors have valid reasons for their barbed dislike. He’s a guy with huge successes behind him, and obvious talent, yet laziness and/or greed saw him churn out mediocre re-released material to fleece unsuspecting fans year in and year out. Content to rest on his laurels for an inordinate length of time, it’s natural to conclude that the impetus behind his lurch back to the spotlight was motivated less by artistic endeavour and more by a desire for extra bungalows.

Thing is, I like the guy. He’s funny.

There’s a lot of snobbery in comedy. Battle-lines are quickly drawn, with generals Stewart Lee and Jim Davidson unwittingly commanding their legions of followers to hack into the ranks of their chortling enemies with reckless abandon. There’ll always be Big-Enders and Little-Enders, but sometimes eggs are eggs. One man’s fish is another man’s poisson, yet judging by the unanimous standing ovation, Kay hits everyone’s buttons. With an insurmountable weight of expectation after so many years away, can Kay live up to the hype? Of course not.

The show runs your standard 90-odd minutes, and it’s packed with Kay’s nostalgic stock-in-trade. Great swathes of material seem formulaic at best, nostalgia writ large in Comic Sans and CAPSLOCK. There are countless lazy call-backs, and punch-lines which are little more than empty statements followed by the phrase “what were that about?!” At times, I thought that seven years in the making was definitely seven years too few… and then Mr Kay would knock one out of the park, hoofing the payoff over the fence with a metaphorical “have it!” At face value, talk of Sky planners and th’iPods may seem scarcely removed from Teletext and t’internet, but there were genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Personal tales from Kay’s upbringing, while few and far between, provide relief from a hail of observational bullets that can seem overwhelming to those with a more laid-back approach to comedy.

After seven years, a lot of which were spent pinned by the harsh headlights of criticism, there’s a sheen of nervy eagerness that slicks up the whole affair, like a new kid trying a touch too hard to make new friends. Kay will always be accused of, and applauded for, giving people exactly what they want and nothing more, and the direction of the show is far too keen to hammer home the apparent success of the material. We suffer through countless cutbacks to laughing faces, at a rate that seems double or triple that of any other comedy DVD I’ve seen. More irritating, however, is the use of couples in the crowd nodding in recognition to Kay’s observational comments, pointing at their spouse while waggling their eyebrows to confirm that yes, the husband does leave the toilet seat up, ha ha ha. It’s a cheap trick that stinks of desperation, a sitcom laugh-track raised to the nth power. A little more confidence in the material, perhaps, and such chicanery would be redundant.

Aside from these gripes, there is a great deal to enjoy. Peter Kay displays a customary warmth and ease with the ludicrously huge O2 Arena crowd, his force of personality making us forget that he’s performing in a room that can spell death for lesser comics. Kay always seems at home, a skill at which he’s only bested by Billy Connolly, and there’s no shame in that. He gives many a cheeky wink to material from shows past; from others this may seem indulgent, but here it’s done with a lightness of touch that had me nodding in admiration more than once. While his tongue-in-cheek new catchphrase is unlikely to take flight, his new take on the fabled garlic bread line still has me smiling today.

Is this the best stand-up DVD you’ll see this year? No. Is it entertaining? Yes. Is it as good as Kay’s earlier work? No. Will it make you laugh? Of course. Seven years in the making, it’s solid enough to appease the hardcore fans, yet empty enough to fan the flames of contempt in the bellies of Kay’s detractors.

A tasty snack, but nothing filling. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another seven years for the next course.