Comedian Peter Kay has announced he is cancelling his long-awaited arena tour and all other work commitments.
The 44-year-old stand-up comedian from Bolton released a statement today asking for privacy as he cancelled his tour due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ within his family.
Earlier this year Kay announced the Peter Kay Live Arena Tour which would have been his first stand-up comedy tour in eight years.
Due to run from April 2018 until June 2019 with shows all across the UK, tickets for the tour sold out within minutes leading to extra dates being added, but it now has been cancelled.
In a statement Kay said:
Due to unforeseen family circumstances, I deeply regret I am having to cancel all of my upcoming work projects.
This unfortunately includes my upcoming stand-up tour, Dance For Life shows and any outstanding live work commitments.
My sincerest apologies. This decision has not been taken lightly and I’m sure you’ll understand my family must always come first.
I’ve always endeavoured to protect my family’s privacy from the media. I hope that the media and the public will continue to respect our privacy at this time.
Once again, I’m very sorry.
Details about how customers can receive a refund were also included in the statement.
Kay added:
Customers for Peter Kay’s Live Arena Tour and Dance For Life shows will be refunded from their original point of purchase and any specific ticket queries should be directed to them.
As Dance For Life is a charitable event in aid of Cancer Research UK, ticket holders may, if they wish, still donate to Cancer Research UK by visiting www.cancerreasearchuk.org.
It is currently unclear when Kay will return to work.
Only last month Kay announced that he was going to make more episodes of his hit television show Peter Kay’s Car Share despite saying before that enough was enough.
During his appearance on Children In Need this year, Kay revealed that a final episode will be broadcast in 2018 which will reveal whether the loveable John and Kayleigh will hit a fork in the road or instead will fall for each other.
Before that episode airs though Kay will tantalise us with an improvised episode which will see the two comic actors ad lib their way through their hilarious commute to work.
As reported by the BBC, Kay said:
We were completely overwhelmed by the response and even though we’ve no plans to write a third series we knew we couldn’t end the story there.
He also revealed how the improvised episode – Car Share: Unscripted – will be aired next year.
Kay added:
We were always very fond of ad-libbing around the script when we were filming the series so we decided to see what would happen if we took the script away and just relied on just our chemistry alone, reacting to whatever came on the radio.
Fingers crossed Kay will be back soon ensuring that the nation is kept laughing.
Our thoughts are with him and his family.
