As the lead performer of a complex puppet like Rygel you have to create a character that the rest of the puppeteering team can get behind from day one.

The technical stuff we would thrash out between us, but once on set with the director and the other actors I worked as another actor, they look to you for resonance and they certainly need you to perform as near to what you think the final voiced version will be.

I am amazed at how quickly Ben and Claudia et al. got to grips with that, talking to the puppet as if it were alive. Claudia and Anthony in particular had some quite emotional stuff with Rygel and my fear was the "technicalities" of the puppet would hamper them, but they were brilliant. Half the job is done for you if the actor opposite the puppet believes.

The real problem was that the producers had no idea who/what they wanted Rygel to sound like for the first five or six episodes. They quite liked the idea of him having that English priggishness, and for one horrible moment I think they toyed with the idea of using my voice which I always hated and would have wanted to re-dub anyway! (I tended to over enunciate to make sure the vowels and 'b's' and 'p's' where all being hit).

As soon as I heard Jonathan's voice I knew it was right, and of course there is a certain physical resemblance... but oddly they wouldn't let me have voice tapes of him reading the lines to rehearse with even after he was on board. I think production were happy with what Team Rygel were producing and didn't want to upset the applecart.

I must set Mr Hardy right on one point, I'm actually from Liverpool and not a Mancunian as he often states.