T.V.: Big Adventures on the Small Screen – Dive into the humour of comedian and bestselling author of The Sound of Laughter Peter Kay with his 2023 autobiography

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Kay co-created and starred in the cult British series from 2001 to 2002, playing Brian Potter, the owner of a working men’s club in Bolton. The Bolton-born comedian is currently performing his new stand-up show Better Late Than Never, which will run until the end of 2025. led a singalong of 1970s advertising jingles, and gave his famous “garlic bread” routine an Italian makeover.

V. is a hilariously funny, wonderfully warm journey through the popular culture of the last forty years. I told him that it was a bag of treats I’d brought, as it was his last show and I thought we could have a bit of a party. When our host orchestrates the audience in a TV theme recital, say, or goes all misty-eyed at one chocolate-bar jingle after another, his role is more conduit for our collective memory than comedian. I handed him a collapsible lollipop stick and said, “It’s 20 minutes outside a primary school – morning and evening”. You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Podcast cookies or to allow those cookies just once.

If you are in the North America, look out for US/Canadian flag icons on popular product listings for direct links. Alongside Kay, the TV show also starred co-creators Neil Fitzmaurice and Dave Spikey, as well as Take Me Out presenter and frequent Kay collaborator Paddy McGuinness.

Fifty-year-old Peter’s new book collects his childhood TV memories and ­documents his own journey to realising his small screen dreams — from making tea at Granada Studios to creating some of our best-loved comedy programmes, including Phoenix Nights and Car Share. A year later, Peter's Car Share won at the National Television Awards but he did not attend to collect the gong. He’s now shared even more brilliant news for fans to coincide with World Book Day on Thursday, announcing the release of his new book TV: Big Adventures on the Small Screen.As the years pass, I’m becoming more like Brian, but if Phoenix Nights rose again it’d have to be for something very special, maybe a film? By the end of his run, Peter will have broken the record for the most shows played at the O2 arena by an artist, with an impressive 44 shows at the venue to his name, surpassing previous record-holders Take That who have performed 34 shows. As a child, Peter loved telly so much he had an unusual ­Christmas present request — asking for blank VHS tapes rather than games consoles or Scalextric. Elsewhere, while the set never directly addresses the reasons for Kay’s temporary disappearance from public life, there is a section on his recent health challenges.