BOLTON comic Paddy McGuiness has put on one-and-a-half stone in weight for his new TV role.

The former fitness trainer at Horwich Leisure Centre is playing an overweight stuntman coming to the end of his career.

It is for a pilot show called The Unknown Stuntman, which will be shown on E4 at 10.15pm tonight as part of the station's Funny Cuts season.

The programme marks the first solo vehicle for McGuinness, who shot to stardom alongside Peter Kay in Channel 4's Phoenix Nights before going on to appear in Max and Paddy: The Road to Nowhere.

The show seems to continue McGuinness's love of nostalgia by making a spoof of the 1980s TV action series The Fall Guy the "unknown stuntman" is a phrase used in the song in the opening credits.

His character, Chuck Stryker, was once Hollywood's most prolific stuntman, but now lives back home in Barnsley in a one-bedroom flat above a pizza shop.

The only thing that stops the bitterness consuming him is Paul Dreggs, a young ambitious stuntman who idolises Chuck and wants to learn the craft from a master.

Patrick says: "I'm in make-up for a couple of hours every day and I've got a big bushy wig.

"I've put on about a stone and half in weight to get that nice paunch round the stomach.

"It was hell eating all those cakes, drinking beer and having extra sugar in my tea, but it was all worth it because it suits the character.

"I'll have to make good use of the ab rocker down at the gym to get rid of my gut, but it shouldn't take to long to get back to a fighting weight please, God."