Dave Spikey

Dave Spikey

Date of birth: 31-08-1950
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.

Read More

Will Smith declares Phoenix Nights' Black Bin Bags parody 'genius'

Hollywood star hears the Jerry St. Clair version for the first time

     comedyWill Smith has heard the Phoenix Nights parody of Men In Black for the first time – and declared it ‘genius’.

In Peter Kay’s sitcom, co-writer Dave Spikey’s Jerry St. Clair gets a job in a supermarket, where he sings ‘Black Bin Bags’ to the tune of the Hollywood star’s movie soundtrack.

But Smith had never heard this comedy version – until he appeared on Chris Moyles’s Radio X breakfast show this morning.

The DJ explained: ‘So, in the UK there was a TV show 20 years ago, maybe, and there was a singer in like a club, and then he ended up just having to take a job anywhere, and he was singing in a supermarket. 

‘And they did a version of that track to do with what we would call garbage bags – black bin bags. Okay? And if you've never seen it, I have to show it to you, because you should see this at least, because I'd love to get your take on it.’

Phoenix Nights Black Bin Bags scene

He then played in the clip from the Channel 4 comedy of Spikey singing: "Come get your black big bags / They’re on offer ‘til December / Come get your black bin bags / They’re long and black and slender…’

‘That’s very, very funny!,’ Smith declared. ‘That’s genius.’

Watch his reaction here:

In the same interview,Smith admitted that he had no idea that the title of his 1997 debut album Big Willie Style had a rude double meaning in the UK

‘You know, I didn't know that was a thing when I called my album that? I did not know. Because that's not what we say in the United States. And I just remember the looks on people's faces when I was coming in, and my album was called Big Willie Style.’

Moyles said: ‘We loved it’, suggesting people bought it for the title alone. 'The fact that there were decent tracks on it was a bonus,' he added.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Radio X (@radiox)

• The Chris Moyles Show is on Radio X weekdays from 6:30am to 10am and on Global Player.

Read More

Published: 13 Jun 2025

Go Jerry

Phoenix Nights deservedly made a star out of Peter…
22/03/2009

King Billy

Billy Connolly has been named the funniest stand-of…
18/03/2007

Skip to page

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.