CASTING northern comic Peter Kay to play a London docker could have been "like putting Kryptonite in Superman's pocket", according to the man who signed him up for the role.

Jeff Pope said Peter, best known for Phoenix Nights, set in a Bolton working men's club, was not the obvious choice to play the father of broadcaster Danny Baker in a new BBC2 show.

Cradle To Grave, set to be broadcast later this year, is based on Baker's memoir Going To Sea In A Sieve and Peter, from Farnworth, plays his father Fred in the show, which is set in 1970s south London.

Mr Pope, responsible for some of the biggest TV hits of recent years including Cilla and Appropriate Adult, said: "I did think it was like putting Kryptonite in Superman's pocket. Was taking Peter out of Lancashire a bit like cutting Sansom's hair but I'm pleased to report it's not at all.

"One thing about Peter is he is a perfectionist and not only did he want to do a Cockney accent, he wanted to do a south-east London one and he's done it."

Peter was spotted filming Cradle to Grave earlier this year in Horwich.

His current show Car Share, which debuted last week on BBC One, is already one of the most downloaded shows on BBC iPlayer after all six episodes were released online.

Mr Pope, who will be honoured with a special award at this year's TV Baftas, is now working on a show inspired by the Shannon Matthews case.

The schoolgirl was nine when she disappeared from her home in Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire, in February 2008, sparking a massive police investigation.

But she was discovered 24 days later at the home of her stepfather's uncle, Michael Donovan, less than a mile away, where she had been imprisoned as part of a plan he and Shannon's mother hatched to claim a £50,000 reward.

Pope said: "That estate, the Moorside Estate, was written off as being full of feckless people but they got together and organised a search and found Shannon alive. The euphoria was immense but then slowly punctured when they realised what had happened and the show is about how that place recovered from that betrayal."