Peter Kay in Dublin review: This is a greatest hits tour, which is fine for those that love it
3Arena, Dublin
★★★☆☆
Do you remember
Peter Kay
? He remembers you. He remembers all the things you've experienced, the shows you grew up watching and the jingles you can sing word for word.
Some of those jingles don't even have words, but Kay is a capable choirmaster for non-lexical vocables when needed, as is the case for theme tunes to Dallas and The A-Team. They fall at the tail end of his opening gambit at the
3Arena
, which is a dream come true for fans of Kay the karaoke singer, if not those who prefer Kay the comic.
In the main, it deals with old adverts for sweets. A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play; a finger of fudge is just enough. Participation is heavily encouraged, and a microphone is even passed around the crowd. Chocolate slogans make way for anything and everything widely recognisable. If the show had been adapted for its audience on the night, we could have heard about
Sally O'Brien and the way she might look
at you.
Outside of reminiscing, some of Kay's main strengths are physical. When he lines up a joke you can usually see the punchline peering at you from around the corner, but as it arrives with a pop of the eyes or a fall of the face it claws back something fresh. His delivery has always been a strong suit – T-shirts have been made and sold off the back of the way he says garlic bread.
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Kay's mother hails from Tyrone, and he works a half decent Irish accent into impersonations peppered throughout the set. Still, there is something occasionally bizarre about witnessing a comedian so rooted in British culture entertaining an Irish audience. We are adjacent to and fascinated by a lot of the in-jokes, but not always part of it in the way Kay might assume.
When the odd reference doesn't land – like a skit of ITV's The Martin Lewis Money Show – it is a reminder that this is a crowd on the periphery of Kay's reach. Apropos of the good weather, and a little jarringly, Kay mentions several times that his trip to Dublin has 'felt like going abroad'. Stand-up comedy can struggle to travel at the best of times, but it is impossible to imagine a set so rooted in relatable UK media making any sense to an audience in Spain, for instance.
Misunderstood song lyrics arrive before the night is out. This is the segment that perfectly weds Kay's playful one-liners with his beloved hook of memory-jogging audio. Paul Simon and Bryan Adams arrive obligingly but there aren't many ways of evolving the segment. After a 12-year break from the stage, this show comes towards the end of a three-year run for the Bolton native – he has been at it a long time.
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The encore does develop, flowering into a mash-up of yet more classic hits and theme songs. Kay now wields his patented shovel guitar, willing the audience into a sway before they head for the doors. In many ways, this is a greatest hits tour of his own material, which seems to be fine for those that love it.
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