Peter Kay has been voted the Greatest British Comedian in a national study to celebrate 250 years of Great British Spirit.
Bolton-born Kay polled more than one in every 10 votes (10%) to win the title, beating nearest rivals - Billy Connolly and Michael McIntyre - to the title.
Legendary Scottish observation-specialist Billy Connolly polled exactly the same number of votes as camp super-comedian Michael McIntyre - a creditable 8% of the national vote.
Fourth place went to Two Ronnies and Porridge star Ronnie Barker, who managed to win 6% of the final vote.
While fifth place was won by the Monty Python team for their legendary off-the-wall anarchic comedy made famous in movies like The Life of Brian.
The study, commissioned to celebrate 250 years of Greenall’s Great British Spirit, also highlighted the greatest British sportsman, band, prime minister, songwriter, adventurer, writer, composer, architect and fashion designer in order to build an accurate picture of the people who have left the biggest impression on British history.
It also highlighted WWII Prime Minister Churchill as the Greatest Brit of all time and was broken down into three time periods: 1761-1863, 1864-1964 and 1964-2011.
Three-thousand adults were then asked to vote for the Greatest Brit of each time period in each of the categories with a final option to vote for the Greatest Brit spanning all three periods.
Greenall’s spokeswoman Christina Brown said: "Peter Kay has been a phenomenal success since his rise to fame a decade ago. His shows are consistently sold out and his jokes and comedy one-liners are the stuff of legend now.
"It was a surprise that comedy legends like Eric Morecambe and Peter Sellers didn’t manage a place in the Top 5 Greatest Comedians but it just goes t show the truly universal appeal of the new comedy stars on the block that they haven’t made the top of the league.
"Nothing like a bit of comedy controversy to get the masses debating though is there?"
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