By 1971, Roy Jay, had not quite  finished as a Bluecoat, and  was touring the provincial club circuit with a fairly standard stand-up act, sharing the bill with everyone from up-and-coming glam rock bands to ageing strippers. It was a tough apprenticeship, in an environment in which the arrival of the hot meat pies often excited the audiences far more than anything that happened on stage, but Jay hid any sense of discomfort he might have been feeling and, in time, proved himself able to deal with, and sometimes even win over, some notoriously intimidating crowds.

By the end of 1973, having effectively edited his act and image while on stage, he had settled on a costume – a bright yellow boiler suit – and a routine – which featured some planned audience interaction, a few impressions, some pacey patter (decorated with the attempted ‘naughty’ catchphrase ”Kin ‘ell!’) and, by way of a finale, an Elvis Presley King Creole parody – which together disguised the derivative nature of his material so well that the dazzle was driving out the doubts. ‘Roy Jay must be rated as one of the most modern of today’s young entertainers’, enthused a reviewer in The Stage.