Meet a big star with a very small ego

Oct 10 2008 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

THE phone rings and it’s Paddy McGuinness, calling ten minutes early.

It’s a refreshing spot of celebrity punctuality, but then celebrity has never been the Bolton comedian’s thing.

This is brought to the fore at several points during our chat, as it is established that a) he is ringing as he is being dragged around the Trafford Centre, and b) he has used the interview as an excuse to take time out from the shops and grab a table at Nando’s.

McGuinness, like all the other actors and comedians from the Peter Kay/ Phoenix Nights stable, is the real deal.

A sitcom star with a nice little sideline in adverts, voiceovers and sports interest programmes and DVD specials (including a stint filling in for Paul O’Grady), he is returning to the stand-up scene with his latest tour – his first in two years – with Paddy McGuinness Plus You!

His shows are selling out all over the place, and he comes to the Philharmonic Hall on Wednesday, October 29, with a specially selected opening act, the Lancashire Hotpots.

It was his idea to select a number of different support acts to help him through the extensive list of dates.

“When you’re touring, you usually have a comedian with you, following you round, and what happens is sometimes people will come back and see you a few times, so I was wondering, how do you keep it fresh?

“So I ran a competition to find support acts – anything, a singer, comedian, a juggler, a band – and asked them to send me a DVD.

“Now, depending on where we are going, there’ll be a different support act.”

The nice thing about Paddy McGuinness is how genuinely laid back he sounds, particularly in the line of fire of what are presumably over-familiar questions.

“Did you read that on Wikipedia?” he’ll joke, or just patiently steer the interview onto his tracks.

“The tour is going fantastic so far – it’s not really about the support acts,” he says good- naturedly. Point taken.

He’s proud of his “everyman” persona and stresses all he wants to make sure he does is make the audience laugh.

Like fellow Bolton resident Peter Kay, with whom he also starred in Phoenix Nights spin- off Max and Paddy’s Road to Nowhere, McGuinness, 35, concerns himself with the absurdity of the everyday.

“My show’s a little bit more like modern variety,” he says. “A lot of audience interaction, a bit of music, bit of video on screens.”

McGuinness has had two years off from stand-up. It would appear it is something he only likes to take on on his own terms.

“I only get out there when I feel the need to do it,” he explains.

“I did stand-up before I was known in Phoenix Nights, but I didn’t do it as a full-time job as I never really enjoyed being on stage. I’d think to myself, why would you put yourself through that?

“I used to watch Peter [Kay] doing it and see he’d get £40 for it, but I never looked at it as a real job.

“When people know you, and when people are coming to see you, it’s a totally different atmosphere.

“A lot of comedians start off and the audience don’t know them from Adam, and it’s very hard work.

“When you are making a name for yourself and people are coming to watch you and are buying tickets to come and see you, everything else is a lot better, it’s a lot more fun.

“They already like you!”

He has been on the road since the summer and doesn’t stop until before Christmas.

When asked if there’s anything else is in the pipeline, McGuinness nearly chokes.

“I’m not a machine!” he laughs.

PADDY McGUINNESS Plus You! Live is at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on October 29.

FOR more arts and entertainment interviews, reviews and previews log on at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-life-features/