Men On Marriage: Dave Spikey
Here at Staggered, we’re lucky to count comedian Dave Spikey as one of our own: check out his advice for us blokes here, here and here. We caught up with him before he sets off on his Words Don’t Come Easy tour to talk about marriage, proposals and the dangers of being a wedding DJ.
STAGGERED: Hi Dave! You’ve recently published your autobiography, Under The Microscope. What was it like picking over the bones of your life?
It was an odd thing, in equal measure pleasing and frustrating. I didn’t know when to stop – I’d done 75,000 words before I even got to the comedy.
Did your wife object to the way you portrayed her at all?
No, she never even read it till it were finished. Unbelievably, the only bit she had a problem with was me mentioning the time she tried to convince me I had leukaemia as a practical joke. I still don’t think it’s funny. She’s got this warped sense of humour.
Warped but good?
No, she’s not got a good sense of humour, to be honest with you. If I run a joke past her and she laughs at it at all, I know it must be absolute solid gold. She doesn’t find comedy funny. She pisses herself at kids falling off swings on You’ve Been Framed.
The book also touches on your time as part of a wedding DJ duo. What was the best part of that experience?
Just watching the whole thing unfold, betting on when the fight’s going to kick off. I used to like doing weddings where one side would come looking smart and the other would be in football shirts and jeans.
Did you see any big fights?
We saw a couple. We did one in Bolton and the groom got caught shagging one of the bridesmaids outside. That kicked off good and proper. At another one, in a really rough area of Leigh, the father of the bride just collapsed on the dancefloor. The groom told us to keep playing, even when the paramedics were dragging him off on a bloody stretcher. We should have played Queen, Another One Bites The Dust.
What’s your guaranteed wedding disco smash?
We played ’60s and ‘70s, so something like Jimmy Mack or This Old Heart Of Mine would do it for me. But you’ve got to play some stuff you detest like The Birdie Song.
What’s your new tour all about?
It’s called Words Don’t Come Easy. I’m sort of obsessed with the English language, like headlines in local newspapers and song lyrics, and this tour is me having fun with that. I talk about a story in a local paper about some pensioners at a craft fair. The headline was: Pensioners Make Lovely Rugs. Song lyrics are my favourite. Take Roy Orbison, ‘I Drove All Night/Crept into your room/Woke you from your dreams/To make love to you/Is that alright?’ It fucking better be, Roy, or you’re on E-wing biting a pillow. And he was registered blind – he might have got the wrong house. It might not even have been night.
One time when words don’t come easy is doing a speech at a wedding. What’s the best advice for best men?
The best advice is do your research – know your speech inside out, so you can keep rolling on no matter what. There was a survey recently where people said speaking in public was their biggest fear.
Ever been a best man yourself?
I never have. My son was my best man at my second wedding – that must have been pretty daunting, but he pitched it dead right and said nice things as well as funny things.
You’ve been married twice?
The first marriage was a complete mistake. What I said was, Will you carry me? I were pissed. My second wife I’ve known her from school. She went out with a mate of mine at the time. She ended up working at the hospital in the next laboratory to me and we became really good mates.
Many years later, her husband died of an undetected heart thing. When my marriage broke down we were sort of thrown together. I suddenly realised, Hang on, she’s quite fit, isn’t she? And that were it. We’ve been together 20 years now. We got married in 2003. I think it really helps being mates first.
How did you propose?
I didn’t – she proposed to me. She was reading in the paper that if I died she wouldn’t get my pension. I said, So what? She said, So let’s get married. And that were it.
What was your wedding like?
Brilliant. We told all our mates we were having a barbecue at our house and we’d be making a special announcement. A week before, we called everyone up and told them we would actually be getting married at Samlesbury Hall, which is just up the road from us.
We gave everyone champagne cocktails after the service and they were rat-arsed by the time we got back from photos. All the blokes had the womens’ hats on. I got Archie Kelly from Phoenix Nights to sing Me And Mrs Jones for our first dance. It was brilliant.
You work with your wife too. Does that present any challenges?
I think it does, because you’re together all the time. I think it’s helpful to find time apart. We actually work in separate rooms in the same house, but we always go out to the pub at teatime to see all our mates. It works for us.
What are your plans for this year?
I’ve got the tour, I’m presenting the TV Book Club on Channel 4 again, and there’s a quiz I’ve got high hopes for but that’s top secret at the moment. You just keep going, don’t you?
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