Do You Remember Peter Kay? the long slow death of the lowest common denominator

A year or so ago I wrote about what I then perceived to be the increasingly phatic nature of British comedy.  At the time the piece was linked to by some pretty large comedy blogs but since then I’ve not really written about comedy, this is probably because I haven’t really watched any this year apart from Entourage and that enrages me in equal amounts that it entertains me. 

Anyway, an event is taking place at the moment that has prompted me to return to writing about comedy.  In particular, I’m returning to the points I made last year as I think the chap I’m going to write about today is a particularly good candidate.

Peter Kay is an astonishingly popular British comedian.  I owned (up until recently) both series of Phoenix Nights written by Kay even though he has since fallen out with his co-writers reportedly because the series ended up being named Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights despite the fact that there were two other writer-actors in it.  Since then, Kay has never really looked back, he started off filling huge venues all over the North of England but now he can sell out 250 date tours within minutes.  He is also a comedian who has seemingly not written a word in several years.  Indeed, in 2003 Kay released Live at the Bolton Albert Hall.  This was rapidly followed in 2004 by Live at Manchester Arena.  However, what was not made clear at the time was that they were different recordings of the same tour and therefore contained all the same jokes.  There then followed other exercise videos, music videos, autobiographies and issue after re-issue of Kay’s existing material.  At this point comedy forums started to reflect the fact that Kay was something of an empty suit... a purveyor of skilfully marketed tat that made him loads of money but required no new work from him.  then something wonderful happened, for Christmas 2007 Kay released Stand Up Ukay, another skilfully marketed DVD but which again contained no new material, merely some music videos and some previously released routines voted for by “the British public”.  What is wonderful is that, at time of writing, Amazon are rating the DVD at one and a half stars.  Of the 41 reviews posted, 34 awarded the DVD 1 star and this is seemingly entirely organic rather than some kind of orchestrated attack.

So what happened to Peter Kay?

Aside from the fact that he’s clearly not only a money-grubbing tart (he’s teetotal but he’s not above flogging beer), and a lazy man who is content to rip people off by raking in the cash as people think “Oh such-and-such likes Peter Kay, I’ll get him that DVD for Xmas” whilst blissfully unaware that any Peter Kay fan will own at least one, if not two editions of this material already.  Setting aside these obvious facts about Kay’s mismanagement of his own career,  why is this spontaneous backlash happening now rather than in 2004?  I think the answer lies in our changing culture.

When Phoenix Nights was first aired, Kay was a hugely successful comic but he rarely travelled south of Birmingham.  His stock and trade was the north and a lot of his material reflected this.  Indeed, Phoenix Nights was all about northern club culture from the eccentric turns that ply their trade on their stages to the weird cowboy obsession that exists in the north and the midlands.  An appearance on Parkinson’s chat show at the time confirmed this as Kay spoke lengthily about how funny the clubs in the north could be.

The other area in which Kay was active at this time was the clip shows that dominated weekend evenings during the early 2000’s.  Frequently given names along the lines of I Love 1976, these shows would deal in nostalgia by showing archive footage of old styles, bands, trends or events and then getting talking heads to comment on them.  Kay was rarely off such programmes at the time and he could always be counted on to sing a theme tune or make some “Do you remember Spangles?” style observation.

Consider the above corporate video Kay has since done for ASDA.

If you pull together the two strings to Kay’s bow you’ll see someone who has built his career on reminding people of stuff.  This nostalgic element was particularly strong in the early 00’s as the millennium and September 11 made a lot of people feel pensive but also it was the first serious onset of the technological fragmentation of our culture.  By this I mean that, previous to the 1990s, Britain had a single TV-focused culture.  We had four channels available everywhere in the UK and the big televisual events of this period served to glue our culture together by giving people some common ground, some means of connecting with other people despite not knowing anything about them.  However, by the early 2000’s multi-channel TV and increasing numbers of people fleeing TV for the internet meant that aside from the two great phatic pillars Celebrity and Sport (split largely along gender lines) British people no longer shared many cultural common points.  Indeed, nowadays when I speak to my mother she will ask me if I saw some TV programme or what I think of some celebrity and I won’t be aware of either, no more than she would be aware of 2girls1cup or the “You Are a Pirate!” song.  One result of the fragmentation of our culture is that people were forced to look backwards for their phatic discourse.

As I explained in my original article about phatic comedy, phatic discourse is essentially discourse that has no value as a form of information exchange, but rather exists as a social lubricant, a way of signalling that one is not hostile and generally making each other feel better.

when Peter Kay would go on stage, people wouldn't laugh because jokes about hobnobs and the Big Shop are funny (because they're not) but instead because they recognise the cultural terms he's chucking about.  Kay made a fortune by making everyone feel as though they belonged and had a shared culture.

It's a more indirect form of the phatic comedy that makes up Little Britain, Katherine Tate and TittyBangBang, as where those series try and forge a common culture whereby people can quote catchphrases and feel included in mainstream culture, Kay mined the past for common ground that was already there.

It's similar the the phenomenon of mother-in-law jokes.  These were popular with the post-War generation because after the war the lack of housing and the state of the economy meant that lots of married couples had to live with their parents, hence the conflict between men and their mothers in law.  The same goes for all those old racist jokes; they coincide with the post-War waves of immigration.  The comedy served not primarily to make people laugh but to make them feel that they had something in common, the laughter was social lubrication, a way of saying "you who are listening to this joke are one of US, unlike those people who look and talk different".

If understood in these terms, it never mattered that Peter Kay was recycling old material, much of catchphrase comedy is built upon repetition, it never mattered because the point was belonging, not enjoying cutting edge or well-written humour.  However, something seems to have changed...

It is now 7 years since That Peter Kay Thing aired and Kay made his way into the national consciousness.  Since then we have seen nostalgia-driven clip shoes entirely disappear from our screens and with the relative failure of TittyBangBang and the absolute failure of Blunder, we can also see the phatic catchphrase comedies disappearing from our screens too.  To my mind, what has changed is that society has come to terms with its fragmented nature to the point where it no longer feels the need to look backwards for comfort and a sense of community.  Nowadays society is broken down into discrete demographics which are each sold quite precise lifestyle models from the 30-something aspirational fare of property and food porn to the technology porn aimed at gamers.  In such a society the likes of Kay who feeds upon the remnants of the past has no place.  He aims at the lowest common denominator at exactly the same time as marketing across the world becomes increasingly about specific demographics.

In such a society Kay can not be guaranteed an audience.  Especially if he insists on treating his existing fans as cash cows.

Comments

[Liam Hemmings]

I think you're absolutely spot on

I am from Rochdale. As a northerner I never really got Peter Kay. To me Kay seemed to talk about inert stuff, the crap that does not matter in the slightest way shape or form.

His audience is usually rammed with northerners, mainly Lancastrians, all being northern together. What a pile of arse that is: I have always been a Lancastrian first and an Englishman a distant second. Yet Lancashire hardly exists anymore, northern culture is on its arse because everyone is stuck in watching their plasma TVs. Traditional pubs are almost non existent; nobody drinks bitter; eats any form of offal; there's no political movements; we're not splitting atoms or making computers anymore; in fact the Lancashire might as well not exist.

Inert as Primo Levi described people in the "Periodic Table" is probably the best word I can think of for people Kay's ilk.

[A.R.Yngve]

Does this imply that other forms of [cough] "entertainment" only exists to produce a sense of shared culture/vicarious experience? (Read: Reality TV, Paris Hilton Inc., etc.)

I miss the days when people could just talk about the weather. At least weather is real.

[Liam Hemmings]

In some senses I think the reality show genre, despite its inherent and necessary fakery is far more real than what Kay talks about. Kay is a peddler of nostalgia of the worst kind, how did Ben Folds put it? "Kids today gettin' old too fast they can't wait to grow up so they can kiss some ass
They get nostalgic about the last ten years before the last ten years have passed". My grandad gets nostalgic about his days in the army during World War Two where he lost an eye and many friends, when looking back he was part of a fight for something. Kay, he's nostalgic about cheap cola and god awful pop songs. He's the lead singer in a chorus of mediocrity.

[mark c]

the best bit about the current advertising campaign is the line where Kay is described as "Britain's Best Loved Comic" - I am always amused by the thought of Ricky Gervaise sat at home, incandescent with rage, going "Nooooo! I'm Britain's Best Loved Comic!!!"

Entourage is terrible, though I gave it a good try. The best comedy on TV at present is Flight of the Conchords, 30 Rock and Alan Partridge repeats.

[Liam Hemmings]

Are there any really good British stand ups anymore? What sums comedy up for me is Jongleurs comedy club: I got tossed out of there for heckling.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

I take it you're not a fan then Liam ;-)

My ex was from Lancashire and she initially loved Kay, as did her family. Not sure about now though she did evidently enjoy Torchwood. Just as well we split up then.

KAy does drive me nuts though, he's just beyond the pale. the worse thing is that I can't think of any really decent British comedians. I've hardly watched any new comedy this year as it's all been shite.

[Liam Hemmings]

Kay is a Robbie Williams analogue: fat, mediocre, bland...I could use every negative adjective in the dictionary.