I've never really understood the mass success Peter Kay has enjoyed.
Maybe I should finally check out Phoenix Nights and see if it lives up to the hype.
I think he tapped into a specific vein of comedy at the right time. His initial couple of stand-up DVDs (the Blackpool Tower one and Mum Wants A Bungalow) were decently funny but also had a pretty broad appeal since his observational stuff focused on really general inoffensive topics, e.g. biscuits, weddings, Teletext, etc.
I'm pretty sure those were some of the first standup sets I was allowed to watch as a kid, other than some swearing (which we weren't allowed to repeat), his material was still accessible to a younger audience. His Channel 4 stuff was definitely for an adult audience but the stand-up made him a household name, which got then cemented with the Amarillo video which was everywhere at the time.
The problem was that Peter Kay never really evolved his stand up after that. I could be mistaken but I think he literally released two DVDs from the same tour at one point so it was almost entirely the same material just filmed at different venues. Over the years, he's leant way harder on the nostalgia factor, which he always did a bit but suddenly it wasn't 'remember a few years ago' but now it's 'remember this specific thing from 30+ years ago'. It's not relevant or new anymore.
Peter Kay is mainly still seen as a 'big name' because he got so popular at a time when everyone was consuming the same media on the same TV channels and buying the same DVDs, etc, which isn't really a thing now. If he'd come on the scene any later, I don't think he'd have made the same impact he did.
