There's no stopping Peter Kay at the moment. Channel 4's Phoenix Nights has been one of the year's comic hits. His current tour has had a whopping 40 dates added, which will stretch it long into 2003. Onstage, he showcases the distinctively northern sensibility that underpins his success. Like Victoria Wood, he specialises in the banal poetry of Lancashire life: his routine is cluttered with Rich Tea biscuits and imitation red-leather video cases. He is a confident and companionable stand-up, but his particular skills - a killer eye for character, and for tone of voice - seem more ideally suited to the deadpan comedies with which, on telly, he's so swiftly made his name.
Bolton, the town and its people, provides the backdrop to Kay's TV hits, and to tonight's gig. Like Alan Bennett, Kay homes in on the prosaic details of provincial life. But he's not looking for sadness or stoicism, but for foibles to celebrate. These are highly affectionate portraits. He brings his gran, for instance, to vivid life: "Have you," she asks him, "got that Harry Potter on VD?"
But there is nothing parochial about Kay's comedy. His cast of characters are Bolton variants on familiar types, at whom his London crowd hoot in recognition. He draws attention to vernacular habits we can all recognise. "Guess who's dead?" his gran challenges him. And then tells him, "It's Connie upstairs. I heard a thudduring Ground Force." When his material threatens to become blandly observational, as with one spiel about dipping biscuits in tea, he rescues it by ratcheting up the dismay and making increasingly absurd comic connections ("Hobnobs," he insists, "are like marines.")
It is poor Connie's funeral that forms the first half's central set piece. The second half revolves around a family wedding. Both seem like dry runs for episodes of Phoenix Nights, and on TV, Kay could develop these sketches free from the need to deliver quickfire laughs. The small screen, too, allows for the type of microscopic detail with which Kay turns types into unforgettable individuals. Nevertheless, this is very amiable comedy from an on-form stand-up, celebrating the daft little dramas that punctuate even the most inauspicious lives.
· At the Regent, Ipswich (01473 433100) on Thursday and City Hall, Salisbury (01722 327676) on Friday, then tours.
