Early life: 1951–1974 McCarthy was born on 9 November 1951 in
Warrington, Lancashire. His Irish mother had moved to England during the
Second World War to work as a nurse McCarthy was educated at
West Park Grammar School in
St Helens, a
Roman Catholic institution run by the
Christian Brothers. He later described this experience as "a mixture of
hellfire and brimstone,
corporal punishment and
awakening sexuality". The Christian Brothers' authoritarian education methods, which included "a fair bit of random brutality", In 1987, McCarthy began performing solo stand-up comedy, adopting his mother's surname as his stage name after learning of another actor using the name Peter Robinson. Audiences "had to jump across the border from Brighton to Hove, where they were handed a glass of sweet sherry. Pete then took them on a tour around Hove, making up the sights as he went along." The show won the best cabaret act in the 1987 Zap Club Awards. McCarthy took his next show,
Live in Your Living Room, from 1987–88 to the Edinburgh, Melbourne and Brighton festivals. He performed in people's homes in bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms to audiences of 10-20. The subject of the show was the metaphysical effects of a hangover. The Brighton Argus reviewer wrote, "The hour-long tour-de-force begins with an apparently hungover Peter in bed, surrounded by empty bottles, and transfers to the living room, where he sports a revolting 1970s stretch burgundy outfit, threatens a striptease and then fortunately changes his mind....In between he delivers a quick-fire monologue which develops from the perils of drinking to tragicomic stuff touching on loneliness, death and unrequited love." Peter McCarthy wrote his books with pen and paper. Asked if he was a technophobe, he said: "Yes, big time. I've got a kettle and a fridge, but I don't own a computer, a
word processor or even a
typewriter." He said in ''McCarthy's Bar'' that his grandfather's surname had been spelled 'MacCarthy'. "It's a translation from the Irish, the 'a' is optional." An uncle in County Cork told him that names of his ancestors in the 1700s had been recorded as "MacCartai". ==Later life and death==