It was all thanks to that special night

Long before Phoenix Nights, the 65-year-old worked as a chief biomedical scientist.

He knew he could brighten the mood in the hospital and enjoyed making people laugh by scripting amateur pantos for staff – but he had little ambition to step into the limelight beyond that.

Then Dave got his first taste of a live audience thrust upon him when he had to step in for a colleague at the last minute as he was the only person who knew the lines.

He said: “I dreaded going on stage but I loved it. When I wrote and directed it backstage I used to get a massive thrill out of hearing them laughing.

“But making them laugh and seeing them laugh was something else.”

Bitten by the showbiz bug, Dave started to look for other opportunities.

He added: “I got asked to do some stand-up comedy with a band who were just breaking through.

“I said I couldn’t do it on my own so I formed a double act with a friend of mine who was in the pantomime with me.

“We were called Spikey and Sykey because his name was Rick Sykes and he was a bit mad and I had spikey hair.

“We did ok and then we got the chance to do this talent show in Scarborough and he couldn’t be bothered because it was Sunday night and he was a teacher.

“I’d promised we’d go. I went over just because I didn’t want to let people down.”

But being abandoned by his comedy partner proved to be just the right medicine for Dave.

Despite it being the first time he had performed stand-up he won the 1987 competition which led to the chance to appear on the national talent show, Stairway to the Stars.

This was it. Make or break – and he won with his Tommy Cooper style act involving magic, mind-reading, impressions and finale about a juggler on a motorbike.

“It was big deal back in the day and that was reflected in the judging panel,” said Dave.

“There was Larry Grayson, there was Dora Bryan, one of my favourite comedy actresses, there was Buster Merryfield, from Only Fools and Horses, and there was Nina Myskow, a big critic. I remember sitting in awe in the green room afterwards

“Everywhere you look now it’s celebrity this, celebrity that but meeting people you’d seen on telly in those days was mind-boggling. I sat there just taking it all in and listening to them chat.”

It turned out that Dave’s sliding door was a juggler on a motorbike.

Dave added: “Larry Grayson said to me: ‘It was a very close run thing. I think you’ll do very well and what won it for you was your routine about a juggling on a motorbike’.

“I often reflect on that moment. If I hadn’t have won it – if I didn’t perform that routine about juggling on a motorbike – would I have just gone back to the hospital and thought no more about it?

“Is it the juggler on a motorbike who is responsible for my career today in comedy?

“I finish the show with that 30-year-old routine. It was a bit of a Tommy Cooper-esque thing. I did some magic that went horribly wrong, I did some mind reading which was ridiculous and some impressions which were rubbish. The final thing was this juggler on a motorbike.

“I still had all the original props so I didn’t have to buy anything new. I still had them in the loft. Everything’s looking a bit tatty and shabby but I think that adds to it.”

These are just some of the ‘fortune favours the bold’ moments that have come to define Dave’s career as he marks his 30th year as a comedian.

His new stage show celebrates with a look back on his life from his childhood to meeting Peter Kay.

An audience at Parr Hall will be among the first to see the show on March 31.

Dave, who has appeared on Eight out of Ten Cats, Dead Man Weds, Bullseye, Magnolia, The Royal Variety Show and Parkinson, said: “I look at my dad listening to radio comedy and I look at my gran who was an eccentric Thora Hird type character who was funny without knowing it.

“Then I had my best friend Derek who I went to school with who was a class clown and was always in trouble. I just loved him. He was everything I wanted to be at school. They all helped shape my life

“Working in hospital, I’ll talk about how the dark humour that pervades that sometimes.

“Sometimes you need somebody to defuse the tension because it can be quite a bleak world sometimes.

“I found I was the one who could do that. I was the quickest and most perceptive in being able to judge when to say something and when to shut up.

“Occasionally you get it wrong and everyone turns around and stares at you but most of the time you get the laugh. It’s a laugh or cry situation.”

Dave, who supported Jack Dee and Eddie Izzard when he was still working at the hospital, met Peter Kay in 1996 when he presented the City Life Awards.

They kept in touch as Peter lived about five minutes away from the hospital where Dave worked.

Their award-winning collaboration on That Peter Kay Thing was, of course, followed by Phoenix Nights.

Dave stopped working at the haematology laboratory about three months before the beloved sitcom aired.

He added: “I turned my microscope off one Friday and the following week I was a giant berry in a car park in the pouring rain singing Walking On Sunshine.”

But Dave reckons Phoenix Nights Live, which raised more than £5million for Comic Relief, will sadly be the last we will see of wheelchair bound club owner Brian Potter, his motley crew and the working men’s club.

“I think that’s it. That was our finale. That was our swansong,” he said.

“I had the most wonderful time. I was speaking about this to one of the sound technicians who came to see my show. We were reminiscing and hairs still stand up on the back of my neck when I think about the reception we got after all these years.

“Just putting the white jacket and red dickie bow on to become Jerry and then hearing that roar was unbelievable.

“People love that show and 15,000 fans singing Black Bin Bags and Brimful of Asha and doing all the actions with Jerry was massively surreal. I’ll never, ever forget it.”

The dual life that Dave used to live as a biomedical scientist and comic also helped him to create the character of Jerry who worked in bricks by day before taking to the Phoenix Club’s stage.

He said: “It’s exactly the same. People come out from their day job whatever it might be, walk into that dressing room and go: ‘It’s show time’.”

The similarities don’t end there

Dave added: “I used to be a hypochondriac. I still am to a degree and that whole scene where Jerry has to go for a colonoscopy was based on my experiences.

“That really happened. The doctor turned the screen to me and said: ‘You might want to watch this’

“I said: ‘I might not. Can you flick it over? Loose Women’s on the other side’...”

n Dave Spikey presents Juggling on a Motorbike on March 31. Visit pyramidparrhall.com or call 442345

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