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Heroes - Peter Kay
1998 was the breaking year for Bolton's finest, Peter Kay.
His first semi-professional stand-up appearance coincided with his debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a prestigious Perrier Award nomination and The Services, a Channel 4 Comedy Lab that set his northern star into orbit.
The Services was a spoof one-off docu-soap set in a motorway service station where Kay played five characters including Pearl, the manageress of the Bolton service station, and a local Chorley FM DJ, Paul Le Roy.
The show acted as the pilot for the Channel 4 series That Peter Kay Thing. That Peter Kay Thing not only won the Best New Comedy Series at the British Comedy Awards in 2000, but also showcased a range of Peter Kay characters including Brian Potter who went on to become the shining beacon of the monumentally huge sitcom Phoenix Nights.
Phoenix Nights saw Peter Kay's Brian Potter act as the wheelchair-bound owner of a northern working man's club struggling to make his business a success.
The show ran for two series and won the People's Choice Award at the 2002 British Comedy Awards and numerous Royal Television Awards.
Back in 2003 the second series became the fastest-ever selling DVD of a TV series, selling 160,000 copies in its first week. Phoenix Nights also spawned the Max and Paddy's Road To Nowhere spin-off, which featured the bouncers from Brian Potter's club.
Away from his award winning shows and tours, Peter's appeared in Coronation Street, a stage version of The Producers and as a big bogie-like alien in Doctor Who.
Yes, that's right, if you get a Comedy Lab you may well end up looking like some snot.
Peter's recently confirmed that he'll have a new show starting on Channel 4 in October 2008, so be prepared for a whole new batch of catchphrases to be reciting at the water cooler.
