04/10/2026
Peter Kay and Billy Connolly may come from different generations of comedy, and their styles are unmistakably their own, but Kay has never hidden the enormous influence Connolly had on him.
Kay built his career around the details of everyday northern English life. Family gatherings, working men’s clubs, weddings, school discos, television adverts and those little shared experiences people recognise instantly all became part of his comedy. Connolly came from a different tradition, with sprawling stories that could wander seemingly without direction before somehow arriving at exactly the right place.
Yet beneath those differences was something Kay recognised early: freedom.
Connolly had shown that a comedian did not always need a carefully constructed stream of traditional jokes. A story, an observation or a memory could become hilarious simply through the way it was told.
Kay has spoken openly about just how important Connolly was, not only to him but to the comedians who followed.
“I think a lot of comedians in this country would not be doing what they did if it weren’t for him,” Kay said, as quoted by The Independent.
He continued: “I think so much of it is influenced by him, heavily. He’s amazing.”
It is a striking tribute from somebody who went on to become one of Britain’s biggest stand-up comedians in his own right.
But Connolly’s influence on Kay appears to go back much further than professional admiration.
One particular performance seems to have stayed with him.
Connolly’s famous routine involving incontinence trousers was the kind of comedy that could turn an unlikely subject into something unforgettable. Years later, Connolly recalled a conversation in which Kay explained what seeing that routine had meant to him.
Speaking in a BAFTA interview, Connolly remembered Kay telling him that watching it had made him want to become a comedian.
“He said it was like thunder and lightning compared to the other comedy on television,” Connolly recalled.
That description says plenty about what Connolly represented to younger comedians watching him.
“Thunder and lightning” was not simply another way of saying something was funny. It captured the sense that Connolly seemed different from what surrounded him. He could make stand-up appear spontaneous, unpredictable and alive, as though the story was being discovered at the same moment as the audience was hearing it.
That influence stretched far beyond imitation. Kay did not become a Billy Connolly impersonator, nor did he need to. The greater legacy was the permission Connolly appeared to give younger performers to trust their own voices.
Kay found his voice in Bolton, in family life, nostalgia and the wonderfully ordinary details of British culture. His comedy became instantly recognisable as his own.
But behind that individual style was the memory of watching another comedian demonstrate just how powerful a distinctive voice could be.
Decades later, the admirer became one of the country’s most successful comedians himself, while still remembering the performer who helped convince him that comedy was something he wanted to do.
Peter Kay did not simply enjoy watching Billy Connolly.
By Kay’s own account, Billy helped make the idea of becoming Peter Kay possible.
