act in the 1987 Zap Club Awards. McCarthy's next show was Live in Your Living Room, which he performed from 1987–8 at the Edinburgh, Melbourne and Brighton festivals, in people's bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms, to audiences of 10-20 people. Its subject 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.' McCarthy explored the same theme further in The Hangover Show, in 1990, directed by John Dowie. For this, he was awarded both the Critic's Award for Best Comedy as well as a Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The show was also developed into a one-off television special for BBC Scotland, broadcast on New Year's Day 1991. As a stand-up comedian, he often drew from his Irish Catholic background as a source of comedy, regularly compering at The Comedy Store in Central London. With the Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough he performed in a two-man comedy show, touring Britain and Australia. In the 1980s he also began writing television scripts and gags for the comedians Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. As a result of The Hangover Show, in 1990, McCarthy was offered an own television travel programme by Channel 4. Entitled Travelog, it offered an alternative travel programme which had little in common with the traditional travel show format. It was a "marvellous experience" for McCarthy who said about this time: "We travelled to Zanzibar and China, Fiji and Corsica, Costa Rica and Laos; stood on the edge of volcanoes, had lunch with heroes of the Crete resistance, and got caught up in a military coup in Vanuatu". Throughout the rest of the 1990s, McCarthy starred in a string of other television and radio shows. These included BBC 2's Country Tracks (1998), Meridian Television's The Pier and Channel 4's Desperately Seeking Something (1995–1998), an exploration of alternative religious movements around the world. For BBC Radio 4, he presented Breakaway, First Impressions, X Marks the Spot, American Beauty, and Cajun Country, as well as appearing as a regular guest on Loose Ends, Just a