Katherine Kelly, Corrie’s Becky, leads celebrity line up at Truckfest

Coronation Street actress Katherine Kelly, who plays feisty Becky Grainger in Britain’s biggest soap, will lead a celebrity line up at Truckfest when it returns to the East of England Showground, Peterborough, from Sunday 3rd to Monday 4th May 2009.

Barnsley-born Katherine, who will appear on Sunday 3rd April, joined Corrie in 2006 and has become one of the soap’s most popular characters, being at the centre of fights, love triangles and even wedding day disasters! She recently won the TRIC award for Best Soap Personality and spent a number of years with the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as appearing in ITV’s The Royal, the BBC drama Life on Mars and Channel 4’s No Angels.

Katherine will be joined at Truckfest by Ice Road Truckers star Rick Yemm who will appear on Sunday and Monday to sign autographs, present awards and meet fans throughout the two-day event. Rick is a tattooed, loud, lively character with a ‘work hard, play hard’ mentality and a great sense of humour (as demonstrated when he showed up for work on series two sporting a blue Mohawk!). He lives in British Columbia with his wife and daughter and, having appeared in both series of the record breaking documentary, is well known by the UK viewers for his larger than life character and rivalry with ex-boss man Hugh.

Also appearing on Sunday are familiar voices from national radio, BBC Radio 2’s Sally ‘Traffic’ Boazman and BBC Radio 1’s Chappers and Dave. Sally has developed a legion of fans over the past ten years who tune into her travel reports on Radio 2 and regular chats with Chris Evans, Steve Wright and Jeremy Vine. Chappers and Dave are both involved with Radio 1’s biggest daytime shows as well as presenting together at the weekends. Chappers keeps Scott Mills in check in the afternoon while ‘Comedy’ Dave is best known as Chris Moyles’ sidekick on the breakfast show.

On Bank Holiday Monday, Truckfest will welcome another famous face from the cobbles as Craig Charles who plays taxi driver Lloyd Mullaney in Coronation Street joins the fun. Before joining the street in 2005, Craig was best known as Dave Lister in the cult sci-fi comedy show Red Dwarf which has just returned to digital TV channel Dave. Craig will also be joined by his Red Dwarf co-star Danny John-Jules who plays the Cat.

Other celebs appearing will be of the wheeled variety including the trucks which faced various challenges when driven by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May in the latest series of Top Gear as well as Big Foot and Thunder Bolt, the Monster Trucks that will be crushing the cars that just can’t hack the pace!

These bad boys will dominate the main arena with their 66-inch tyres and top speed of 80 miles per hour. As well as winning the Monster Truck World Championship six times, Bigfoot also holds several World records including longest distance Monster Truck jump at 202 feet over a 727 aeroplane and the longest wheelie! Truckfest won’t have aeroplanes but will have cars ready to be crushed as both trucks jump more than 14 cars, travelling 110-115 feet through the air!

The main arena action takes nothing away from the extensive industry exhibits or the hundreds of competitors competing in the cherished Truckfest awards, which has euphemistically been called ‘Crufts for Trucks’. See the amazing customised paintjobs, gleaming chrome and fantastic interiors and see why these awards have become such a hard fought contest.

The Illegal Eagles will provide live music on the Sunday evening for those making a weekend of it and taking advantage of the camping and caravanning facilities. A fun fair, children’s cartoon characters and hundreds of trade stands make it a bank holiday weekend not to be missed.

Truckfest is open from 9am until 5.30pm on Sunday 3rd to Monday 4th May 2009. Day Tickets are available £14 for adults in advance and £16 on the day. Children’s tickets are just £5 in advance or £7.50 on the day. Family tickets (two adults and two children) are £35 in advance and £39.50 on the day whilst Camping starts from £74.50. Call the ticket and Camping hotline on 0871 230 7149. Visit the website truckfest.co.uk for further updates.