Peter Kay has reunited with Lisa Riley after he recently compared a heckler he kicked out of a show to the actress.
On February 8, the stand-up comedian had three members of the audience – a man and his son and a woman – removed from his show at Manchester’s AO Arena after they heckled him, comparing the woman to Riley both at the time and then later on social media.
Riley and Kay didn’t seem to be dwelling on the controversy as they met up after Kay’s gig at Leeds Arena on Saturday night (March 8), however. Riley, who plays Mandy Dingle in Emmerdale, posted a photo of herself with Kay the following morning, writing, “Thank you so so so much Peter for the most fantastic night last night. We laughed until it hurt – the show is absolutely hilarious.”
With both Riley and Kay three years apart in age and both having grown up in Greater Manchester, the former described the show as “northern at its best” with “so much nostalgia that warms your heart.”
At the time of the heckling incident, Riley said, “Please draw a line under this now, I am not offended, never was offended. I love Peter Kay to pieces, laughter is my favourite medicine.”
Kay reportedly said to the heckler during the show, “Go on, off you go Lisa Riley,” and then in a statement posted to Instagram after the show, part of his ‘Better Late Than Never… Again’ tour, he wrote, “The lady who was escorted out did bear a striking resemblance to Lisa Riley, though I don’t see how that’s an insult.”
It was reported that the man and his son, meanwhile, were ejected because the former was repeatedly shouting “garlic bread,” one of Kay’s catchphrases. As security removed the man, the woman was said to have shouted “We love you, Peter,” causing Kay to ask security to remove her as well – at which point he’s said to have made the Riley jibe, which left the woman feeling “humiliated” as a result.
He added in his statement, “There comes a point when dealing with repeated hecklers simply isn’t enough. It’s not something you ever want to do but it becomes a point when it’s no longer fair to everyone around.”
He then said he “felt he had no option but to remove the hecklers as they were spoiling the show.”
Kay’s tour has been running since 2022 and is set to end next year. It’s his first since ‘Have Gags Will Travel’, which ended in 2019. The comedian also returned to TV last Christmas to voice PC Mackintosh in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, reprising the role from 2005’s Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
