Peter Kay shares memories growing up in Bolton with Sara Cox

Kay spoke with fellow Boltonian, Sara Cox, on her Radio 2 show this evening (December 1).

The conversation was recorded at a pair of special shows at The Lyric, part of Salford’s Lowry Theatre.

The Farnworth-born comedian shared funny moments in his life – inspired by his new book “Peter Kay’s Diary: The Monthly Memoir of a Boy from Bolton” which was released in October.

It follows up his 2023 autobiography, “TV: Big Adventures on the Small Screen”.

Kay said: “You can get that now from any charity shop for a pound or less and I sell them on Sundays at Fletcher Street car boot in Bolton.

“I sell them signed and I do Mach 3 blades and I do four litres of bleach as well if anyone wants to come down on mornings.”

But the Phoenix Nights star said he still doesn’t consider himself to be a writer.

He said: “I don’t consider myself a writer at all – I didn’t even get a GCSE in English – I finished and thought, I’ll miss that now.

“One thing led to another and I would love to write all my thoughts and feelings about the months of the year. So each chapter, January, February… you get the gist.

“It’s just me talking about that month and what it means to me now or in the past.”

Speaking about his school days, Kay said he was “almost more comfortable making people laugh”, adding: “It always seemed that was the only thing I was ever really good at.”

He shared that he played the lion in the Wizard of Oz in fifth year – and said the performance was when he realised that he “really loves making people laugh”.

He explained there’s a scene when the jitterbugs come out and “Dorothy, Tin Man and Scarecrow can’t stop dancing”.

Kay said he had to sit at the front of the stage because he didn’t know the dance moves – but on the fourth night decided to do something differently.

He said: “I got up and I started dancing around on stage and it got a really good reaction and then I danced off stage and I danced out, said hello to my mum. And the mayor was in and governors. And then I spotted on stage because it were a forest, they had these third -year girls dressed up as trees. So I danced up and cocked my leg up on them. 

“But then in the interval, Sister Sledge come back and she were like, it’s not your show, there’s other people in the show – you have got to think about them.

“Is that what you want to be when you grow up? A comedian?

“And then I wanted to say yeah.”

Sara also asked Peter if he had ever tried to lose weight – to which he replied, “only for the first 48 years”.

The comedian shared that he had “tried everything” and was doing “quite well” at one point – but shared a time when he went to the cinema in Bolton with his wife.

He said: “I once went watching Green Mile with Susan at the cinema in Bolton – and it’s three hours, Green Mile.

“It were a Sunday night, it were packed, and we were sat up the back row.

“I thought, you know, why do you think cinemas are associated with hot dogs? It’s bizarre, isn’t it?

“I was sat there and I thought, well – I fancy a hot dog.

“So I said to Susan I’m going to the toilet – I nipped out, went down and bought a hot dog.

“I were doing really well on this diet.

“I had this hot dog and I’m shoving it in because I had said that I had gone for a wee and caught a glimpse of myself and, ironically, it was a framed poster for Babe 2.

“I thought look at you – you should be ashamed of yourself and I threw the rest of it in the bin.

“And just as it was about to hit the bin liner I grabbed it and had another bite.

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“Anyway, I went back in and ran up and sat back down and said, ‘what have I missed?’

“She said, ‘you’ve had a hot dog’, and I said, ‘I have not’, and she said, ‘I can smell it on your breath’.

“I went, ‘listen, I bumped into Jason Glazer in the foyer and he had a hot dog and let me have a bite’.

“Lying pig, that’s how bad it were – honest to God.”