Editing Paul Kaye (section)

===Early career===
On graduation, Kaye designed theatre posters for the King's Head, the [[Bush Theatre]], and the [[Gate Theatre (London)|Gate Theatre]], [[Notting Hill]]. He was a scene painter at the [[Old Vic Theatre]] in Waterloo and illustrated regularly for the ''[[NME]]'', ''[[i-D]]'', ''[[Literary Review]]'', ''[[Time Out (company)|Time Out]]'' and ''[[International Musician]]'' magazines between 1987 and 1989. He had two exhibitions of illustration and poster work between 1989 and 1990, firstly at the [[Soho]] House Theatre, and then at [[RADA Studios|The Drill Hall]].{{cn|date=June 2024}}

Kaye formed and sang in many bands, including the dark psychedelic outfit We Are Pleb, who played extensively in [[Camden Town|Camden]] during 1988–89 (at the same time as [[Blur (band)|Blur]] and [[Suede (band)|Suede]]) and had a penchant for setting the stage on fire. Kaye was signed to [[Go Discs]] in 1992 with a group called TV Eye (formed with ex-members of the band [[Eat (band)|Eat]]), which released two singles, "Killer Fly" and "Eradicator".{{cn|date=June 2024}}

In 1993, Kaye filmed a prototype Dennis Pennis, interviewing his own band on a late-night indie music show on [[Granada TV]] called ''Transmission''. After the interview, Kaye then went out with the crew, got very drunk and offended as many people as possible in [[Oxford Street]]. This tape somehow arrived on the desk of producers at [[Planet 24]] six months later, and they offered Kaye the job of knocking on people's doors at 6.00am on ''[[The Big Breakfast]]''. Kaye turned them down, preferring to stay on [[Jobseeker's Allowance]] and stick with We Are Pleb; [[Mark Lamarr]] eventually took the job.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

Kaye was a graphic designer<ref name="geek">{{Cite web|url= https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/paul-kaye-interview-dennis-pennis-game-of-thrones-zapped/ |title=Paul Kaye interview: Dennis Pennis, Game Of Thrones, Zapped|first=Louisa|last=Mellor|date= October 18, 2017}}</ref> for [[Tottenham Hotspur]]. He had an office in [[White Hart Lane]] and designed in-house merchandise for Spurs, [[Derby County F.C.|Derby County]], [[Southampton F.C.|Southampton]] and [[Aston Villa F.C.|Aston Villa]] for Danish sportswear brand [[Hummel International]] (doing caricatures of [[Paul Gascoigne]] for school lunchboxes etc.). As an [[Arsenal F.C.|Arsenal]] fan, Kaye has said there are subliminal cannons contained within his work for Spurs, including a pen and ink drawing of Tottenham's new stand on a catalogue cover which features a minute cannon in the crowd: 70,000 were printed. Kaye became in-house theatre designer of the Bet Zvi Drama Academy in [[Tel Aviv]] for 12 months in 1994, designing all the in-house productions in their studio theatre.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

His TV debut was on ''[[The Word (TV series)|The Word]]'' being secretly filmed in [[Oliver Reed]]'s dressing room. Kaye recalls "Reed had drunk two bottles of vodka, taken all his clothes off and I honestly thought he was going to kill me on live television. I swore in bed that I'd never do a celebrity interview again. Typically, six months later I'd come up with Dennis Pennis."{{cn|date=June 2024}}

In 1994, Kaye convinced his old friend Anthony Hines (a car mechanic and some time roadie for TV Eye) to help him write Dennis Pennis when he was offered the job on ''[[The Sunday Show]]''.<ref name="geek"/> (Hines was later poached by [[Sacha Baron Cohen]] to write for [[Ali G]] on ''[[The Eleven O'Clock Show]]'' and went on to receive an [[Academy Award|Oscar]] nomination for co-writing ''[[Borat]]'' in 2006).<ref name="geek"/>