Random House Announces Acquisition of Peter Kay's Autobiography

Random House Announces Acquisition of Peter Kay's Autobiography

LONDON, April 18/PRNewswire/ -- The Random House Group is delighted to announce that Mark Booth and
Hannah Black have acquired rights to the autobiography of Peter Kay. Century
will publish the autobiography in hardback at the end of Summer 2006.

Peter Kay is one of Britain's most popular and much loved comedians. His
warm observations of family life are said to be reminiscent of Alan Bennett.
Kay was born, bred and still lives in his beloved Bolton, also the setting
for his BAFTA award winning television series Phoenix Nights.

After Kay entered and subsequently won Channel 4's So You Think You're
Funny contest in 1997, his first semi-professional stand-up appearances were
at the 1998 Edinburgh Fringe festival, where he was nominated for the Perrier
Award. His first television series for Channel 4 was That Peter Kay Thing in
which Peter played a staggering fifteen characters

In addition to writing and acting in the BAFTA winning Phoenix Nights,
Kay also directed the second series which saw him achieve critical acclaim as
well as mainstream appreciation. In 2004, his DVD, That Peter Kay Thing,
became the fastest selling title of the year and the DVD of Phoenix Nights is
the bestselling comedy DVD ever. In addition, Kay also embarked on the
biggest ever British stand-up tour. His 2002 Mum Wants A Bungalow tour
smashed box office records and sold out at a rate of a seat every 2 seconds
bringing in audiences of over half a million

For Comic Relief, Kay promoted a re-release of Tony Christie's 1971 hit
Is This the Way to Amarillo. Kay appeared in the hilarious music video that
accompanied the song and the single went on to be number one in the UK
Singles Charts for 7 consecutive weeks and raised over 2 million pounds for
Comic Relief

Peter Kay says, 'I'm busy writing....do you want this book finished or
not?'

Mark Booth, Publishing Director of Century says, 'We are absolutely
thrilled to be publishing Peter Kay and we are confident that the book will
be a huge critical and commercial success.'

Hannah Black, Commissioning Editor of Century says, 'Publishing Peter
Kay's autobiography is a dream come true. Not only have Century acquired a
gifted writer with a keen sense of the absurdities and idiosyncrasies of all
family life, but also one of Britain's greatest - if not the greatest -
comedians. We've loved what we've read so far, we started to laugh after the
first line and carried on laughing till the end. No more misery! Bring out
the biscuits.'

Source: The Random House Group Ltd

CONTACT: Charlotte Bush, Divisional Publicity Director CHA, Random House +44-(0)207-840-8613 cbush@randomhouse.co.uk

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