Peter’s roaring success (From The Bolton News)

Peter’s roaring success

9:33am Monday 28th May 2007

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BOLTON comedian Peter Kay stars in new children's TV series Roary the Racing Car as the voice of Big Chris. He talks to The Bolton News.

PETER Kay is excited. He has watched the first four episodes of Roary the Racing Car, his wonderful new pre-school animation series, with a group of small children and is very hopeful that the show will have genuine staying power.

"I love the idea that it may have longevity. When those children were so clearly loving the show, I started getting all emotional, thinking that their children could be watching it in 30 years' time," he said.

Roary The Racing Car drove up at exactly the right time for the Bolton comedian, and star and writer of Phoenix Nights and Max and Paddy. "I''d always wanted to do a children's series. I''ve always been fascinated by television, and I love the idea that if something is a success, your voice is preserved for decades.

"Think of Michael Hordern doing Paddington Bear, Bernard Cribbins doing The Wombles or Ringo Starr doing Thomas the Tank Engine. Those performances are classics and have lasted for several decades.

"Children don't mind when something was made. I tape very early episodes of Rainbow and Trumpton for my son and watch them with him. He loves them.

"Trumpton was made in 1967, but he still watches it like it's new. Children love the innocence of those fables, and it's great to see the excitement and wonder in a child's eyes as he listens to Brian Cant's voice. I was exactly the same when I was his age in 1977. If something really works, it can last forever."

Peter Kay makes for compelling company. He can be summed up by all those adjectives beginning with E: effervescent, engaging and hugely entertaining. An hour in his presence just flies by; it's like being treated to a command performance - to an audience of one. It is no surprise that he is the most popular comedian at work in Britain today.

The 33-year-old comic, who has recently starred in The Producers at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, voices the character of Big Chris in the series, while racing legend Sir Stirling Moss narrates.

Peter says he has been bowled over by the standard of the series, which is produced by Chapman Entertainment, the producers of Fifi and the Flowertots, and animated by Cosgrove Hall Films, responsible for Danger Mouse and Chorlton and the Wheelies.

Roary the Racing Car, which will be launched on Nick Jr in June, was originated almost a decade ago by David Jenkins, who spent four years working in senior management at Brands Hatch and Goodwood race circuits. He had the idea of making the series while watching the Grand Prix on TV with his son, Tom, who at the time was 18-months-old.

Set among the big personalities and highly-tuned egos at the Silver Hatch race track, the programme centres on Roary, a novice, bright-red, single-seater racing car whose enthusiasm and curiosity often lead him into trouble.

Peter almost whistles in admiration at the care with which Roary the Racing Car has been assembled. "Watching the series, I've been blown away. The attention to detail is extraordinary. For the last four years, people have been working on this round the clock, producing just a few seconds of footage a day. "

Peter plays Big Chris, who is the chief mechanic and father figure to all the cars. "It's basically me," he chuckles. "I've done a lot of ad-libbing because that makes the character more three-dimensional. Ad-libbing is sometimes seen as forbidden in animation, but the producers are delighted because it brings a freshness to the series."

Peter is motivated by an almost childlike desire to bring pleasure. "If you can be involved with something like Roary the Racing Car, it's just bliss," he enthuses. "It may sound like a cliché, but you're bringing happiness to people when you do a project like that. That innocence of Trumpton from 1967 - maybe that's something I've taken from my own childhood into my work."

That urge to spread fun has characterised Peter's entire career. His humour has always traded in warmth rather than cynicism. "No one gets slagged off in my comedy. It's not the comedy of hate. I hope it's a breath of fresh air for audiences."

Peter thinks that his gentler comic style has come back into fashion. "Comedy has swung away from those panel games where the comedians are vicious about everybody," muses the comic, who has also recently appeared in Doctor Who, Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, The Catherine Tate Show and Coronation Street. "Audiences want comedy with no venom. They want to have a laugh without it becoming twee. There are not many things that people can watch these days with their children and grandchildren, but maybe that's what I offer."

Peter, whose last tour, "Mum Wants a Bungalow", broke all box-office records, adds that he always keeps it clean. "When I do stand-up, I never swear because if I did, my mum would batter me. That's how I ended up with this style. I've got to think about my nan, my mum and my sister. My act is about my life, and my life is my family. I have to treat them with respect."

Peter, who has followed up his massive hit, Is This The Way To Amarillo?, from two years ago with another number one single for Comic Relief, a hilarious reworking of The Proclaimers' track, 500 Miles, is not immediately planning to hit the road again.

However, he says that he has not stopped collecting material. "I've continued writing down funny things that I hear from day to day - I must never lose them!

"You need to live life in order to build up a new act," says Peter, a teetotaller who, ironically, enjoyed huge success with his series of TV commercials for John Smith's beer. "All the best material comes from real life.

"Last week, for instance, I was trying to persuade my nan to get Sky Plus. I was telling her that if you want to go and make a cup of tea, you can pause the telly. She looked baffled: But what about everyone else?' You're not controlling TV throughout Britain,' I explained. You're not going to prevent someone in Devon from watching the end of Midsomer Murders just because you've paused your Sky Plus!'"

Peter added another, quite extraordinary string to his bow recently when his book, The Sound of Laughter, shifted one million copies to become the best-selling British autobiography of all time.

Now Peter is considering an offer from his publishers to write another book. But in this, as in everything, he retains an appealing and quintessentially British sense of modesty.

"When you're told something like you've written the best-selling autobiography ever in this country, how can you possibly comprehend it?

"The British way is not to gloat. You don't whoop or jump off lamp-posts. You just say, oh, OK. Right then, what shall we have for lunch?'"

l Roary the Racing Car airs every weekday on Channel Five's Milkshake! and on Nick Jr from Saturday, June 2, at 4pm, airing every weekend. Episodes will be available on www.nickjr.co.uk

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