Ranking Peter Kay TV Series From Worst To Best

Ask anyone in Britain to name a stand-up comedian and there’s a good chance that the response given will be ‘Peter Kay’. Though he hasn’t toured in over a decade, Kay has an enduring and cross-generational appeal, having been at the forefront of the revival of British comedy in the early 2000s that paved the way for many of today’s heavyweights to become arena-headlining household names.

Too ‘mainstream’ and reliant on soundbites for the tastes of some, nobody can deny Kay’s success, which has extended beyond the stage. Though never a regular on the panel show circuit that allows many comedians to maintain a regular presence on small screen, his chat show appearances, which have become rare occurrences given his general reclusiveness in recent years, are always fun to behold given the instant affinity he generates with his audience.

Like many stand-ups before and after him, Kay has also dabbled in a number of television comedy projects over the years, including sitcoms and mockumentaries, to expand his profile.

None of these have ever gone beyond 12 episodes, such is the ‘quality over quantity’ approach that distinguishes British programmes from their American counterparts, but each has had its own notable impact.

Channel 4 has been the launching pad for so many of the UK’s comedic success stories, which makes recent talks about it being sold off to the highest bidder instead of remaining a not-for-profit publicly owned broadcaster a worrying prospect. The likes of Ricky Gervais, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jimmy Carr all got their starts on obscure series like The Eleven O’Clock Show or Comedy Lab pilots, and Kay was no different.

1998 saw him star in a mockumentary entitled ‘The Services’, set in a motorway service station near Bolton and focused on the mundane and eccentric individuals contained within it. It led to the commissioning of a six-part series, each of which saw Kay portray different characters in and around different locations in his hometown, with most being based on his own experiences of working dead-end jobs and finding humour in the personalities he encountered.

The episode quality varies considerably, with the likes of pornography-peddling ice cream man Mr. Softy Top, dog-obsessed fire safety marshal Keith Lard and disabled working men’s club proprietor Brian Potter (more on him later) standing out more than wannabee pop star Marc Park or randomly Wild West-obsessed bus driver Johnny Utah.

Experimental in nature and with a number of running gags that miss the mark (such as repeated references to Bob Carolgees), it was a commendable if not somewhat forgettable first foray into televisual entertainment for Kay, allowing him to refine his talents.