HE HAS one of the most distinctive voices on television and has had one of the longest unbroken careers in entertainment.

Peter Sallis played long-suffering Clegg in the veteran sitcom Last Of The Summer Wine before becoming known to a younger audience as the voice of Wallace, master to ingenious hound Gromit in a series of animated plasticine adventures.

He has also starred on stage with some of the greatest names in entertainment – Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and Judi Dench – played Samuel Pepys in a 1958 BBC series and appeared in several prime-time series.

Now 88-year-old Peter will be recounting his life and adventures at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, tomorrow night in a one-off evening of anecdote and banter.

“I get on stage and I show off – it’s all I have left,” he says in his gentle, slightly mischievous, instantly recognisable tones. “I like going round the country and talking to people and I find that if I am enjoying myself, the audience usually is too.

“I have had what is known as an interesting career and a full one and it is marvellous that I have been able to get to this age without being seriously out of work.

“I was very, very lucky indeed to land Last Of The Summer Wine, which has run for 35 years. Of course we didn’t know it would last that long and indeed, there are still rumours that it will be revived in some form or the other.”

He continued: “It is a marvellously written show. Roy Clarke has written every one of the episodes and it is such a gift to be able to do that.”

If Last Of The Summer Wine cemented Peter’s popularity with viewers who liked their comedy wry and soft-edged, the misadventures and inevitable triumphs of enthusiastic Wallace and his long-suffering, sensible hound Gromit brought Peter fame with a whole new audience.

There have been five Wallace and Gromit films, starting with The Wrong Trousers and running through to A Matter Of Loaf And Death, which screened on television last Christmas. While all the films, made by Bristol-based Aardman Animations, are rich in simple joy, humour and typical British eccentricity, it was the fourth outing – The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit – which brought the team to a global audience and bagged an Oscar for best animation.

“The chance to do Wallace and Gromit came out of the blue,” said Peter. “Nick Park phoned me up one day and said would I do it. I hadn’t even heard of him at that point. Quite why he chose me I do not know, because Wallace wasn’t meant to sound like Clegg.

“But I like doing voice recordings. They are very different to recording a television series because I can listen to myself speak and no one can tell me off for not doing it properly!”

An Audience With Peter Sallis is at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis tomorrow at 8pm. Tickets are £13.50 from the box office on 01297 442138.