Peter Kay, the co-writer and star of Phoenix Nights, returned to The O2 arena for a February night of Better Late Than Never, his first tour in 12 years.
Peter Kay, the co-writer and star of Phoenix Nights, returned to The O2 arena in North Greenwich on Saturday 22 February 2025. The night was part of his tour Better Late Than Never.
His Channel 4 mockumentary That Peter Kay Thing ran in 2000. One episode, set in a northern social club, became the basis of Phoenix Nights in 2001, with Kay as the club’s owner, Brian Potter.
The first series was filmed partly at St Gregory’s Social Club in Farnworth, the town where he grew up. Its two bouncers led a spin-off, Max and Paddy’s Road to Nowhere, in 2004, with Paddy McGuinness beside him.
In 2005 he mimed to Tony Christie’s “(Is This the Way to) Amarillo” in a video for Comic Relief. The reissued single went to number one.
The tour began in December 2022. At The O2 it became what the arena calls the first monthly residency it had given any artist.