TELEVISION viewers will tonight see Bolton comedian Peter Kay pick up his top book award from Cherie Blair.

He won Biography of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards for his best-selling memoirs, The Sound of Laughter.

Viewers will see the Prime Minister's wife, who presented the award, announce Kay as the winner with the words: "He's the future - like garlic bread."

Kay was not at the ceremony on Wednesday because he was performing on stage at Manchester's Palace Theatre in the hit musical, The Producers.

Instead, he appeared in a video message dressed as his character from The Producers, transvestite Roger DeBris, which he recorded at the Palace Theatre.

Addressing the Prime Minister's wife as "Cherry", he told her to laughter from the audience: "Thank you, Cherry, for my citation.

"I'll come and see you in Number 10 - before you go."

Mrs Blair said afterwards: "I think as a northern lass I couldn't possibly turn him down."

She also told the audience that reading had been her passion as a child.

"I read everything and by the age of 10 I had actually read every single book in the children's section at Waterloo Public Library, so they had to give me a ticket to the adult library because they recognised there were no books left for me to read," she said.

Peter Kay's book sold a record-breaking 600,000 copies in its first two months on the shelves and has now sold close to a million.

Kay missed out on Book of the Year, however. That went to The Dangerous Book for Boys by brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden.

  • The ceremony is screened at 8pm tonight on Channel 4.