PETER Kay's new comedy show Car Share has been nominated for a prestigious award.

The show has been shortlisted in the comedy category in the National Television Awards, which will be held at the O2 Arena in London on January 20.

It will face competition from Benidorm, Birds of a Feather and Not Going Out.

Car Share previously won four awards at the Royal Television Society North West Awards in November, including best comedy programme and Peter himself won best performance in a comedy.

It followed supermarket colleagues, played by Peter Kay and Sian Gibson, forced into a new car share scheme, and became the biggest sitcom to premiere on any TV channel since 2011, with 6.85 million viewers tuning in for the opening episode.

Peter recently revealed he has already written the scripts for the second series of the show, but that filming is not due to take place for a while because of technical reasons.

"We wrote it a while back now and we’re just waiting for light nights," the Phoenix Nights star previously told BBC Radio Wales.

"You see because we drive around a lot we need to shoot it in May/June. People say why don’t you do a Christmas special? The problem is it goes dark at half seven. You can’t really drive around in the dark.

“It’s really difficult to light the inside of the car, it’s very boring and technical, but driving around in May and June it doesn’t go dark until 10 o’clock at night so you can film until about 8 o’clock you see. And really, the whole show is set outdoors but in a car, so we need as much daylight as we can get so the plan is to film in next May/ June."

Also shortlisted in the newcomer category at the NTA's is Bury actress Gemma Atkinson for her performance in Emmerdale.

The other three nominees in her category are Eastenders star Richard Blackwood, Parry Glasspool from Hollyoaks and pop star and Coronation Street actor Shayne Ward.

People can vote for their favourite shows and performances online at nationaltvawards.com before noon on January 20.