Kay will play Fred ‘Spud’ Baker alongside Lucy Speed as long-suffering wife Bet and Laurie Kynaston as a young Danny.
Set in 1974 and co-written with Jeff Pope, Cradle To Grave follows the real-life events of Baker and his family, with a 15-year-old Danny acting as the guide through the ups and downs of life with the family.
Fred ‘Spud’ Baker is a proud south London docker with a penchant for cheeky scheming. Wife Bet loves him deeply but longs for the family to go ‘straight’ and play by the rules.
With eldest daughter Sharon’s looming wedding, the docks facing closure, and Danny’s struggles to get closer to the opposite sex, times are tough.
The presenter and writer said: “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.”
Kay added: “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.”
The series will air on BBC Two later this year.