A bloody good start
to a comedy career
Editor Chris Breen talks to the former Phoenix Nights writer and star, Dave Spikey, a.k.a. the “compere without compare,” Jerry St. Clair, ahead of his performance at Whitehaven Civic Hall on Friday October 21. It is s part of Dave’s new tour show, “Words Don’t Come Easy”.
TIMING is important for a comedian... and if it hadn’t been for the hands of Bolton Town Hall Clock, Dave Spikey may never have become a comic.
For over 30 years Dave, real name David Gordon Bramwell, now living in Chorley, worked as a bio-medical scientist at The Royal Bolton Hospital and eventually became chief biomedical scientist in haematology, but there was also something else in the blood.
In his late school years Dave had had his sights set on being a doctor. Then his dad, a self-employed painter and decorator “No job too small,” fell off his ladder.
“His claim to fame was that he painted the hands of the Bolton Town Hall clock,” added Dave. “He fell off his ladder while doing it; it was half-past six; had it been quarter past he would have been alright.”
Dave, who was a bright lad, having gone to Grammar School - “one of the only once from our area,” -- and did well there, but he suddenly became the breadwinner and the decided to take a job in the hospital labs, so that he could study medically-relevant things and earn a wage at the same time, and perhaps later resume doctoring studies. That never happened and instead his career in the biomedical field developed.
I asked him who had influenced him, outside his studies, during his earlier years. “ I listened with my dad regularly to classical music, like that of Manchester’s Halle Orchestra and to the classical and very cleverly written radio comedy shows of the 1960s, such as Round the Horne, The Navy Lark and The Clitheroe Kid, I was and still am a massive fan of Kenneth Horne, Dave said.
“Hospitals used to put on shows, pantomimes and reviews and I eventually joined the amateur dramatics group and when the guy who wrote most of the material left, I took over the writing. Then one day when I was directing, one of the actors walked out saying something like: ‘You do it, if you think you can do better.’ So I had to. I’d always been a fairly shy, but I got a strange buzz from the laughs; I liked it and so I carried on.
“I had always been very good at English and writing; I’ve a fascination with words. Writing came easily to me, and it still does. I could write all day and sometimes do, although at school there would often be a comment, in red ink, after some of my work, such as: ‘David you write well, but why must you always insist on being funny?’
“But I wasn’t doing it deliberately; that was just me and it was the way I naturally wrote”.
And Dave’s being doing it ever since.
He even broke off from doing so, to speak to me from Spain. Among other things he’s currently involved in writing a new TV comedy with Neil Fitzmaurice, called “Glitterball” which is set in a hotel around the world of non-competitive ballroom dancing.
“The hotel has an Eastern European receptionist name of Vileda. ‘You can call me Vile for short,’ she says... and she is,” adds Dave.
His journey into “proper” show business had begun in 1990. After winning the North West Comedian-of-the-Year Award, he became a regular on the comedy club circuit and once famously supported Jack Dee, Max Boyce, Cannon and Ball and Eddie Izzard, all in a week. He presented ITV's game show Chain Letters - while continuing to hold down his day job at the hospital.
“There’s a misconception that I came up through the working men’s clubs, maybe because of Phoenix Nights, but I didn’t, I’ve only ever played about six and they didn’t like me,” he said.
He co-wrote Phoenix Nights with Peter Kay and in 1996, TV comedy history was made when Dave met fellow Boltonian, Peter Kay. Sharing a similar style and approach to comedy and writing, they went on to form a formidable partnership; collaborating on Mad for the A6; a Granada special, and then on The Services for Ch 4's Comedy Lab. Shortly after they co-wrote Ch 4's hit series, That Peter Kay Thing, which was awarded Best New TV Comedy, at the British Comedy Awards in 2000.
Inspired by this Dave took the plunge and gave up the day job. Within 12 months he'd fulfilled his dream of writing a comedy series by co-writing and co-starring in Ch 4's critically acclaimed Phoenix Nights with Peter Kay and Neil Fitzmaurice. Together they wrote and starred in two series of the cult TV show with Dave playing “the compere without compare,” Jerry St. Clair, “an amalgamation,” he admits, “of every club compere whoever donned a white suit and became Dean Martin for the night”.
“Does Jerry still haunt you?” I asked, “Yes, he does ... but in a good way. I get a lot or reaction in the street. The white hair doesn’t help but I supposed people recognise me most easily because I was the only cast member who looked as I do in real life,” he said. I still get a lot of people shouting to me.”
Dave’s Whitehaven gig will be his second, having been here two years ago and Inspired by the fantastic audience response to his autopsy of song lyrics in his last tour, combined with his fascination with the vagaries of the English language, his new show examines many more situations in life where words really don't come easy.
These include tongue-tied parents explaining the facts of life, ridiculous newspaper stories, magazine poems, pathetic adolescent chat-up lines, learning a foreign language and an extended selection of song lyrics.
I asked him where he gets his inspiration and material from.
“I’m a keen observer, people watcher and collector of characters, and I seen to have the knack of honing right in on the right conversation... even in crowded places.”
These attributes have helped take him to prestigious comedy and TV awards as well as helped him to write two books. His first, He Took My Kidney, Then Broke My Heart, was published in October 2009, by Michael O'Mara Books and lampoons a collection of the most outrageous, amusing and downright farcical local news stories. His second book is Under The Microscope, published in 2010 by the same publishers, is all about his life.
So beware... if you’re in the vicinity of Dave’s radar, when his show comes here in October, your persona might well feature in his next tour or TV series.
