Product Description

Peter Kay's unerring gift for observing the absurdities and eccentricities of family life has earned himself a widespread, everyman appeal. These vivid observations coupled with a kind of nostalgia that never fails to grab his audience's shared understanding, have earned him comparisons with Alan Bennett and Ronnie Barker. In his award winning TV series', he creates worlds populated by degenerate, bitter, useless, endearing and always recognisable characters which have attracted a huge and loyal following. In many ways, he's an old fashioned kind of comedian and the scope and enormity of his fanbase reflects this. He doesn't tell jokes about politics or sex, but rather rejoices in the far funnier areas of life: elderly relatives and answering machines, dads dancing badly at weddings, garlic bread and cheesecake, your mum's HRT...His autobiography is full of this kind of humour and nostalgia, beginning with Kay's first ever driving lesson, taking him back through his Bolton childhood, the numerous jobs he held after school and leading up until the time he passed his driving test and found fame.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15242 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-02
• Released on: 2006-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author
Peter Kay was born in Bolton in 1973. After leaving school with a GCSE in art, he held a series of jobs including working as a cinema usher, mobile disc jockey, in a factory packing toilet rolls, garage attendant and in a bingo hall. After a Btec in Performance Studies, he went on to win the 1997 So You Think You're Funny contest at the Edinburgh Festival and was nominated for the Perrier Award the following year. Peter Kay's first TV series was That Peter Kay Thing, followed by Phoenix Nights series 1 snd 2. The series Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere was a spin off from Phoenix Nights. Peter Kay has played a cameo role in Coronation Street and has appeared in the recent series of Doctor Who.

Customer Reviews

Ends a bit too soon
I'm not going to go into a great deal of depth here as there are already 96 reviews on this product, so I'll just give you my (short) opinion - brilliant!

I've been a big fan of Kay for a while now and reading his heart-warming memories from his early life, written in a stand-up story kind of way I now have more of an in-sight into how he got into the show biz career he is so famous for now and have a history of all of the crappy jobs he had beforehand and the funny tales that accompany them. My only complaint is that the book finishes way too early as it doesn't really touch on his stand up, A Peter Kay Thing, Phoenix Nights or Max & Paddy days or his relationships with Paddy McGuiness or Dave Spikey. Hopefully this will mean that a follow-up is in the works (which might explain why he hasn't done much for the past year or so!). I normally hate reading biographies and auto-biographies, but this one I couldn't put down. An excellent and hilarious read.

Yawn
Nothing new here that he hasn't covered in Phoenix Nights, That Peter Kay Thing or any one of his DVD's. Speed read it in a day which says it all, expect volume 2 within a couple of years as his stand up days only warrant a couple of chapters. Expected a lot more.

Coming in your ears?
There are very few people in my lifetime that can tell a story about an answering machine or garlic bread, and make my entire family cry with laughter.

Enter Peter Kay.

Without trying to compare his brand of humour to any of the classic comedians, it is refreshing to see a talented young person appealing to all generations.

This is reflected in this very frank and honest autobiography, which tells Peter's story with charm and dignity. His story is told with the clever whit that you would expect from one of the funniest men alive, but does not dust over the times of real life that helps make Peter the comedy hero he is today.