Despite always making people laugh comedy didn’t come easy to Dave Spikey, he tells Laura Davis

DAVE SPIKEY’S current obsession is words. Everywhere he goes he has one ear cocked like a sleeping guard dog listening for something that doesn’t quite fit.

His grandma: “I’ve got a big day tomorrow. I’m having two teeth taken out and a gas fire put in.”

Rock band Thin Lizzie: “Tonight there’s going to be a jailbreak somewhere in this town.” (“Ooh, I wonder where!” exclaims the comic.)

A TV news report of a hostage situation: “Police are sending in a trained negotiator.” (“That’s the one I’d want.”)

The Bolton-born comic has started driving everywhere with the radio on, in case of ludicrous song lyrics, and pours over newspaper headlines.

His favorites are “Llama drama ding dong” (llama loose in a Preston playground) and “Pensioners make lovely rugs” (next to a photograph of old ladies working at a craft fair).

All of these, and plenty more, are woven into the Phoenix Nights actor’s current stand-up tour, Words Don’t Come Easy, which is playing two Merseyside venues early this year.

“Take the song Unrequited Love by Vanessa Williams,” says Spikey, now on a roll.

“Right in the middle of it she spoils it all by saying ‘sometimes the snow comes down in June, sometimes the sun goes round the moon’.