Spikey's hopes for series revival

Dave Spikey has said he’d like to make another series of Phoenix Nights – and criticised Peter Kay’s Max and Paddy spin-off as ‘blatant, unsophisticated comedy’.

Spikey, who co-wrote Phoenix Nights with Kay and Neil Fitzmaurice as well as starring as Jerry St Clair, admitted there was little chance of the show returning.

But in an interview with Chortle readers, he said Kay ‘has shown little inclination to return to the Phoenix – and we can’t do it without him’.

He added: ‘I’d be very interested in doing a Christmas special. I think the Phoenix would be a perfect place to set a festive story, but  we may have left it too late.’

Spikey said the parting of the waves between himself and Kay was not acrimonious, as many believe.

However he thought Kay’s spin-off project, Max  And Paddy’s Road To Nowhere, was ‘pretty obvious, blatant, unsophisticated comedy for me’.

But he added: ‘What do I know? It did very well and got nominated for a National TV award so I must be in the minority.’

Spikey was replying in the first of Chortle’s new  You Ask The Question interviews, in which readers quiz comedy stars.

Coming up in the next two weeks are Perrier-winner Demetri Martin and veteran double act Cannon and Ball.

Click here to read the full interview, with instructions on how to submit a question for the future interviewees.

Published: 1 Nov 2005