House & Home DAVE SPIKEY 30TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
Dave Spikey, will celebrate the 30th anniversary of his comedy career in 2017 with a 19 date tour - JUGGLING ON A MOTORBIKE will kick off in March and run through to December.
JUGGLING ON A MOTORBIKE will see the Lancashire based comic look back on his remarkable life and incredible journey from working class lad to Chief Biomedical Scientist to much loved comedy performer and writer via Phoenix Nights, Eight out of Ten Cats, Bullseye, Dead Man Weds, Magnolia, The Royal Variety Show, Parkinson and many more.
Can you tell us about your 30th Anniversary tour Juggling On A Motorbike and what audiences can expect? Something old, something new, nothing borrowed, nothing blue as I tell the story of my thirty year journey in Comedy from my first gig in 1987 to this current show in 2017. But more than that, a look at the years before – my formative years - that helped mould me into that person, who when given the opportunity to make a massive jump from Biomedical Science to Professional Comedian embraced and took that chance. So expect stories of my working class childhood, living in that idiomatic world that kids do where I “needed to pull my socks up” in order to do better and I shouldn’t be impatient because “a watched kettle never boils” (it does, I tried it). The great influence that my parents and grandparents exerted on me especially my crazy grandma who warned me that if I burped, hiccupped and farted at the same time I’d turn inside out. My passing the 11 plus and going to Grammar school and meeting my great friend Derek Rigby who was according to my Grandma was “Daft as a Brush” – which he was. My hospital life from Junior Technician in Microbiology to my time in Haematology, mixing emergency on-call cover with hospital pantomimes with marriage along the way.
First steps into stand-up in talent shows and at working men’s clubs in Yorkshire (Overheard in the Gents toilet ; “What do you think of the comedian?” “He’s alright if you like laughing”).
Then of course the leap into full time comedy , meeting and collaborating with Peter Kay , Phoenix Nights ,my own Dead Man Weds, Bullseye , Eight out of Ten cats , Royal Variety Show and Parkinson and all points along the way to this, my sixth national tour. And a moments reflection that if I hadn’t won that first “Stairway to the Stars” in Torquay, I might have jacked comedy in and concentrated on my Haematology Career. That if the great Larry Grayson hadn’t told me that I clinched the title with my routine about a juggler on a motorbike I wouldn’t in the year 2000 have switched my microscope off for the last time and found myself the following week on a windy rain-swept car park down the road dressed as a giant berry singing “Walking on Sunshine”.
What are your earliest memories of comedy?
My late dad was a self-employed painter and decorator by trade (No job too small – Estimates free) He had no academic qualifications and yet he was and still is the most well-read and knowledgeable bloke I’ve ever met. He loved literature, art (Renoir his favourite), classical music (He used to sit in his chair and conduct the Berlin Philharmonic on our gramophone with a knitting needle), philosophy, psychology. He wrote poems and short stories and painted and drew but most importantly he loved comedy. We would sit together and listen to “Round the Horne”, “The Navy Lark”, and “The Goons” on the radio and later fell off our chairs in hysterics while watching “Phil Silvers” or “Morecambe and Wise”. I grew up surrounded by laughs and competing daily with my dad as to who could come up with the funniest remark.
What made you decide on biomedical science as a career?
Like a lot of things in life, I didn’t decide; fate lent a hand. I’d just started the sixth form at school. I was studying Maths, Physics, Biology and Chemistry and had a vague idea that I’d like to go to university to study medicine. A vague idea was as far as it got – because my dad had an accident at work and as a result I had to leave school and get a job. My dad had noticed, while he was at the hospital, a sign in the Department of Pathology advertising a job vacancy for a Junior Medical Laboratory Technician and he suggested that it might be an idea to apply because once he was fully recovered, I could return to my studies and the pathology laboratory experience might prove valuable if I pursued the medical career.
And so it was that I presented myself for interview at Bolton Royal Infirmary in September 1968. The interviewing panel was daunting and comprised Mr Parker the Chief Scientist, some bloke from Personnel and Dr Manning , a very grand, old-school-type consultant pathologist , immaculately turned out, right down to the flower in his buttonhole; think James Robertson Justice. He was also very shrewd and a great judge of character, which is why, when I told the lie in the interview, he knew immediately and rather than challenging me on it directly, he played me like a fisherman plays a trout, allowing me just enough line to keep running while he slowly, inexorably and painfully reeled me in. The interview had actually gone pretty well and we were up to the easy bit at the end where they try to find out what makes you tick. Hobbies, interests, sports, that sort of thing. I made the mistake of lying to impress when Dr Manning asked me about my hobbies. It went something like this...
Dr Manning: So, David, what do you do in your spare time? Do you have any hobbies? Me: Stamp collecting. Dr Manning: Philately? Me: (Hesitates) Probably.
Dr Manning: I’m a great philatelist myself.
Me: (Smiling on the outside, but on the inside thinking, ‘Oh shit.’) Really?
Dr Manning: Yes. I specialize in United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Which country do you specialize in? Me: China.
Dr Manning: China! That’s unusual. Me: (Ohmigod.) Is it? Dr Manning: Yes, so why China?
Me: (He knows I’m lying.) Because my uncle lives there and he sends me them.
Dr Manning: Whereabouts in China does he live? Me: (Eyes pleading: ‘Please let me off.’) Err . . . (Why didn’t I do Geography?) Me: Saigon.
Dr Manning: That’s in Vietnam. Me: (Sweating now.) Is it? Shanghai, then? Yes, that’s it definitely, Shanghai. I’m always getting them confused. Dr Manning: What does he do in Shanghai, your uncle? Me: (Oh, please be merciful.) He’s an engineer. Dr Manning: What sort of engineer? Me: A marine engineer.
Dr Manning: A marine engineer in Shanghai?! Me: Alright! I don’t collect stamps!
I got the job!
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Entrants must be 18 or over Closing date: 31st MARCH 2017 around SADDLEWORTH 59
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