Peter Kay advised how his comedy hero Billy Connolly isn’t in nice well being

Comic Peter Kay has revealed he speaks to his hero Billy Connolly however the says the Scottish get up is “not doing so effectively”. Kay was requested about his comedian heroes and advised how he’s fortunate sufficient to have met all of them, together with Connolly.

Connolly was identified with Parkinson’s illness in 2013 and retired from stay performances 5 years later. Kay mentioned: “ I met Billy Connolly. I nonetheless be in contact with Billy Connolly now and he’s not so good now, however he would nonetheless message and that. I believe a whole lot of comedians on this nation wouldn’t be doing what they did if it weren’t for him. I believe a lot of it’s influenced by him, closely. Wonderful.”

His feedback had been met with heat applause on the Lyric Theatre in Manchester the place he was being interviewed by Sara Cox as a part of a Radio 2 particular which aired tonight. Kay additionally mentioned he had a beautiful alternate with one other comedy hero. He mentioned: “I’ve been actually fortunate as a result of I’ve met all of them. I met Ronnie Barker. I’d at all times completely adored Porridge, used to observe Porridge. Oh. Anyway, I wrote to him, and he wrote again. I discussed I cherished Porridge, and I’d mentioned how a lot it meant to me.

“In the future, this letter got here, and it mentioned ‘jail’, and I assumed ‘who’s written to me from jail?’ And I opened it, and it was Her Majesty’s Jail Slade, and he’d written to me in character as Norman Fletcher. And he wrote about – I had been crying me eyes out – he wrote about nicking this paper from the library when MacKay wasn’t trying and Barrowclough, and he wrote this two-page letter all about being in jail.”

Kay can also be an enormous music fan and cherished assembly Billy Joel who he adores. Talking on Radio 2, he defined to Sara Cox: “I’ve at all times cherished Billy Joel, ever since me dad purchased a 12-inch of Uptown Lady and he’d come again with a four-track EP, Uptown Lady, My Life, Nonetheless Rock and Roll to Me and Simply the Approach You Are – come house with it from city on bonfire evening, 1983. I had been thrilled to bits.

“And ‘trigger me dad favored him and I favored him, you form of bond with him. I’d seen him stay, I’d been up and right down to London on the coach seeing him after which he got here, 2007 he did a tour, I went to each single present and I bought to satisfy him and we simply bought on rather well.

“And the maddest factor was, I had all these LPs that I’d purchased, second hand, from X Information, and I had these LPs and he had been in Glasgow, I went up, I mentioned ‘hear, if I convey me LPs, would you signal them?’ And he mentioned ‘yeah, no downside.’

“So, I introduced all of them as much as Glasgow and I sat in his dressing room, and he wrote messages on every – ‘this one’s cr*p’ – he wrote, ‘this one shouldn’t have been made’, ‘this was to pay for divorce primary’. He put messages on these – ‘I like this one, this isn’t dangerous’ and oh, I completely treasure them!”

Peter Kay was showing on Radio 2 as he promoted his new e book ‘Peter Kay’s Diary: The Month-to-month Memoir Of a Boy From Bolton’. He has additionally prolonged his tour and the ultimate exhibits subsequent 12 months will see proceeds from his Higher Late Than By no means exhibits going to 12 most cancers charities.

Through the interview with Sara Cox he additionally spoke about his battle attempting to drop some pounds.

When Sara requested if he ever tried to drop some pounds, Kay, 52, replied: “Just for the primary 48 years, and so they lied. Yeah, I needed to finally, since you begin excited about your well being and issues like that, do not you? However I attempted every thing, flaming weight reduction teams. I did fairly effectively at one level.”

* Peter Kay’s Diary: The Month-to-month Memoir Of a Boy From Bolton is out now, Sara Cox is on Radio 2 on weekdays 4-7pm.

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