Footballers Lives Teaser

Footballer's Lives teaser. Written by Dave Spikey.

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Former NHS haematologist Dave Spikey’s stand-up career started in 1992 after many years writing routines and sketches for other comedians, TV and radio.

He performed with Rick Sykes as the double act Spikey and Sykey, appearing on ITV's New Faces show. They split up soon afterwards.

In 1991 he won the City Life North West Comedian of the year title.

He went on to host gameshow Chain Letters in 1997, following on from Jeremy Beadle, among others.

His next big break came with his writing collaboration with Peter Kay, first on That Peter Kay Thing and then on Phoenix Nights, in which he also starred as club compere Jerry St Clair. It won the Best Newcomer award at the British Comedy Awards in 2002.

He has performed two tours, Overnight Success (which sold 75,000 copies on DVD) and Living The Dream.

In 2005, he wrote and starred in the ITV comedy-drama, Dead Man Weds, which he also co-starred in, and in 2006 he presented the revival of darts gameshow Bullseye on Challenge

And since 2005 Spikey has been one of the regular team captains on the Channel 4 panel game, 8 Out of 10 Cats.

Dave Spikey: Best Medicine tour
Live Review
Bloomsbury Theatre

If laughter is the best medicine, the first half of Dave Spikey’s show should probably be classed as a sedative.

Though he was getting chuckles from some quarters, his familiar observations about tired subjects almost sent me dozing. Perhaps the fact that the very title of this show is based on a cliché should have set off alarm bells, but his comments on daytime TV shows, ‘claim for blame’ ads and the security questions they ask you at airports could form a checklist of the hackneyed.

There are gags about Viagra (‘can you get it over the counter?’), about putting together Ikea furniture, and a long routine about dobbers - obese ‘working’ class people ironically clad in Sports Direct gear, sunburning on their drink-fuelled holidays to Benidorm – that gets dangerously close to ‘my wife’s so fat…’ gags. The audience certainly went with it, chuckling at lines as simple as him introducing this dobber family as ‘Mum, Dad and their daughter Chantelle Demi’, but it’s all no-brainer stuff.

He’s a jolly fellow, and sells his material with his well-known Chorley charm, but Spikey’s reliance on reporting back on things he’s seen or overheard adds to the predictability – even if you suspect the sign ‘Guard Dogs Operate At This Hospital’ doesn’t really exist with that wording.

For the newspaper cuttings he’s compiled, he’s brought the evidence, getting laughs from such stories as the one about a llama running amok, headlined ‘Llama Drama Ding Dong’ – but the sub-editor who wrote that pun surely did all the work. This section shows more flair when Spikey finds accidentally bad or ambiguous writing than simply repeating funny headlines.

Stories from his time as an NHS haematologist raise the mood – as well as acting as a very good advertisement for going private, as the terrifying-if-true yarns about dozy nurses would make the perfect basis for Spikey’s next sitcom. But his passion for the British institution where he worked for so long is apparent.

Tales from his own youth also entertain – even if he can’t help wallowing in some easy sweet-shop nostalgia about Blackjacks. Spikey is a natural raconteur, upbeat but subtly mocking, and I’d rather hear these first-hand anecdotes over his opinion on the Cillit Bang adverts any day.

Having said that his closing routine is a stormer, picking out ridiculous lyrics, mainly from female middle-of-the-road balladeers of the Eighties. There are some howlers here, even if Spikey disingenuously ignores the deliberate irony of likes such as Pink Floyd’s ‘We don’t need no education’.

At two interval-free hours, this final night of Spikey’s 110-date tour felt like something of a slog, because for all of his cheeky charisma a good chunk of the material felt crushingly familiar. Though as the likes of Michael McIntyre and Spikey’s one-time colleague Peter Kay have found to the benefit of their bank balances, the familiar certainly sells.

I saw DS in Sheffield on the 15th October, having seen him previously about four times, and whilst parts of his show were very funny, overall I was disappointed. There were two main reasons firstly it wasn't as slick as previous shows as he seemed hesitant, this maybe because its early on in his tour. What was worse was how much of the material was exactly the same as it was when I last saw him a few years ago. Admittedly some of it is very funny, but it is short changing the audience to brand it as a new show when large parts of it weren't.

David, October 2011

Nothing wrong with recycling material from working men's clubs. After all who goes to them anyway? Without DS working hard, maintaining the history of stand-up where would we be. He's a joke curator taking us on a tour of extinct pub comedy only less smelly and with the racism cut out. He's a hero.

Maxie B, January 2010

Went to see DS recently at the Lowry, He went down a treat, very funny and original, shaking off the Phoenix Nights baggage and delivering a really fresh and enjoyable stand up performance. Lot's of memorable moments, like flatlining on Mr Freeze ice pops and a great end to the show with a sequence of ridiculous song lyrics, that had the audience in the palm of his hand. A great night out!

Alex Frost, March 2008

He has plenty of charm but you'll find much funnier comics at your local comedy club. One for the old dears, I think.

Smudge, March 2008

Does no one realise that Dave Spikey is & has just been recycling the oldest pub/workingmen club gags in the world & almost incredibly passing them off as his own! or is it just me? + very poorly to boot, he should thank his lucky stars the day he met Peter Kay other wise he would probly calling bingo in Blackpool because that is where he belongs. Quite frankly the man may be a nice person but as a comedian he is shite!

Wilma, May 2007

I used to think Dave Spikey was the poor-man's Peter Kay - similar jokes, similar accent, similar delivery. However, he seems to have grown into his own over the past couple of years. I think he's good value on 8 Out Of 10 Cats. In my view he now has a world-weariness and a penchant for clever wordplay that puts him ahead of Mr Kay.

Thomas Pickles, February 2007