Rick Parfitt, Chrissie Hynde, Tim Rice, Billy Bragg, Roy Wood, Paul Young, Mark King, Noddy Holder, Martin Kemp, Melanie C, Chas Hodges, Dave Peacock and Mike Batt. The following actors and television or radio personalities have appeared as themselves in guest roles: Roger Moore, David Arnold, David Baddiel, Noel Edmonds, Miranda Sawyer, John Humphrys, Dan Cruickshank, Mike Read, Jack Whitehall, Martin Freeman, Kathy Burke, Alex Jones, Dan Snow, Matthew Wright, Alan Yentob, Paul Gambaccini, Tony Blackburn, Simon McCoy, Annie Nightingale, Dermot O'Leary, Kirsty Young and Ian Wright. Production The commissioning of the series was announced by Janice Hadlow on 22 August 2013 at the Edinburgh International Television Festival under the name of Rock Ratatouille. Origins Comedian Rhys Thomas created the character of Brian Pern in 2008 when he was asked by BBC Comedy commissioner Simon Lupton to come up with an idea for the first batch of Online-Exclusive comedy sketches the BBC Comedy Website was developing. A fan of Peter Gabriel, Thomas was a frequent visitor to Gabriel's website where the singer would post a monthly video blog about his current projects. At this time other rock musicians from the same generation were doing the same, such as Brian May and Brian Eno. In the series, Pern states that he "invented world music" (a reference to WOMAD) and was "the first musician to use Plasticine in videos" (a reference to Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer"). "There is more than one influence in that character," Gabriel told Mark Blake of Q, "but I am definitely one of them. I'm flattered by it." Once the idea was commissioned, Thomas approached his fellow Fast Show and Down the Line collaborator Simon Day to play Brian Pern. Day was also a fan of Gabriel. Following a successful run on BBC Online, a second batch of sketches were commissioned. With a small increase in budget, extra cast members were brought in: Lucy Montgomery as Majita (who would later become Pepita in the TV series) and Paul Whitehouse as guitarist Pat Quid (Thomas later cited he got the name from Stacy Keach's character in Roadgames). The relationship between Pat and Brian is based on that of David Gilmour and Roger Waters. Thomas created the part of Brian's manager John Farrow for Michael Kitchen. Thomas had been developing a comedy drama for BBC One with Kitchen and offered him the part in the second series of online specials of