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Peter Kay and former EastEnders star Lucy Speed are to star new BBC comedy Cradle to Grave . The eight part series is an adaptation of Danny Baker’s autobiography, Going to Sea in a Sieve and Kay has already begun filming in Manchester as Baker's dad.

Set in 1974, the series follows the real life events of Danny and his family and is due for broadcast on BBC Two later this year.

The regular cast includes Peter Kay as Danny’s father, Fred ‘Spud’ Baker, Lucy Speed as long-suffering wife Bet Baker, Laurie Kynaston as a young Danny and Alice Sykes and Frankie Wilson as Danny’s siblings Sharon and Michael.

Peter Kay said: “I am thrilled and honoured to be involved in a project of this scale. I've never known anything like it before, eight period half hour episodes, shot as feature films and written to an extremely high standard by Danny Baker and Jeff Pope. It's an exciting time.”

(Image: BBC)

Danny Baker added: “Well this is weird and there's no way around that. To see your life played out by actors is always going to be peculiar and also, frankly quite tremendous. I always knew these stories were thunderingly entertaining incidents and that I seemed to be hurtling through a particularly unpredictable, high velocity life peopled by extraordinary characters. Now here they are. This will be a fantastic, rich voyage back to a boisterous often maligned era, true tales told large - a strong family in a magnificent working class community just getting on with life.”

In Cradle to Grave, 15 year-old Danny Baker (Laurie Kynaston) is the guide through the ups and downs of life with the family.

Fred ‘Spud’ Baker (Peter Kay) is a proud south London docker with a penchant for cheeky scheming.

Wife Bet (Lucy Speed) loves him deeply but longs for the family to go 'straight’ and play by the rules.With eldest daughter Sharon’s (Alice Sykes) looming wedding, the docks facing closure and Danny’s struggles to get closer to the opposite sex, times are tough.

Co-writer, Jeff Pope said: "The most exciting part of this series is that it all happened. There is nothing funnier or more dramatic than real life and Danny and his family are a treasure trove of wonderful stories. To see Peter Kay take on a cockney character in 'Spud', Danny's late father, is terrifically exciting."

The comedy was commissioned by BBC Comedy boss Shane Allen.

Shane said: “The talents involved in this series are a powder keg of writing and performing British comedy genius. It’s a raucous and rich world of colourful characters and hilarious stories, and like Danny himself it’s shot through with a big-hearted ebullience.”