THE generosity of comedian Peter Kay helped launch a Blackburn animator on the road to an award-winning career.

The star of Channel 4's Phoenix Nights paid for half of his own plane fare to London to star in John Chorlton's animation - The Last Rhumba in Rochdale - for free.

The short film, which also features Rossendale actress Jane Horrocks, is a dark comedy about a young boy, Bodney, who is constantly in trouble with his parents.

After eating his grandma's birthday cake, Bodney tries to make amends by visiting his grandmother's long-lost sweetheart in Italy, but nothing goes to plan.

Peter Kay provides the voice for Bodney's father, while Radio 1 DJs Mark and Lard appear as members of Bodney's sister's rock band. The film also stars Timothy Spall and Lisa Tarbuck.

The stars all agreed to perform for free as the ten-minute animation was made by students on a low budget.

The film has now won four awards at film festivals across the world, including the Royal Television Society's Best Postgraduate Animation award.

It was written and directed by John when he was as a student at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield.

He said: "Peter Kay was the first person to agree to it because he liked the script. Then Jane Horrocks, and it snowballed from there."

But John, 26, thought he would have to abandon Peter's starring role after his agent said he did not travel by train.

He said: "I worked with a student producer, who booked a train ticket to get Peter from Bolton to London. He told his agent, who said Peter didn't use trains and usually flew everywhere.

"I thought 'Oh no,' because a plane ticket would have spent most of the budget. And then he offered to pay half his own fare. He paid to be in the film!"

All he wanted in return for the work was a box set of Channel 4's hit Mafia TV series The Sopranos.

However, John and his small team were not prepared for Kay's studio entrance. He said: "Peter walked straight in and picked up a megaphone. Then he just started shouting with it into a microphone and nearly blew all the amps. The sound man was really worried.

"We assumed he had loads of other voice-over work to do at the same time. But he arrived, did his part, and flew back. All that effort just to do my voice-over for free."

In the film, Kay's character sings the Italian opera song Nessun Dorma. But Kay's life in Bolton had not prepared him for reading Italian.

Mr Chorlton said: "The dad has to sing it drunk. We were filming other scenes and Peter sat in the corner of the studio with headphones on listening to the song, writing the words down phonetically because he couldn't pronounce it from the Italian word sheet.

"If I did another film, I'd want to work with these people again, but I could never afford them, as I'm sure they'd want paying a second time."

The film will be shown for the first time in the North West at Manchester's Cornerhouse cinema, Oxford Road, next Monday night, as part of the Commonwealth Film Festival.