Funny voices

When did you discover your talent for voice artistry? Well, it was an accident really, I'm primarily an actor and I did all my early work at the Bristol Old Vic Company. I then did four or five West End [plays] and I was a singer as well.

But then I was booked to do, don't ask me how many years ago, Pinocchio on television and played Lampwick, the boy who got in an awful lot of trouble. The Goons had just come out, so one day at rehearsal I started to read scripts in Goon voices, and the director said, 'Oh they're wonderful, let's use them.' I said, 'You can't, somebody else is doing them.'

But a month or two months later this girl rang me and said, 'I believe you do wonderful puppet voices,' and I said, 'No I don't, I've never done them'. She said, 'Well, I'm auditioning some at the BBC, could you come and have a go?' So I said, 'Yes,' went and did them and the BBC hated them!

But Gordon Murray, who had come and done the audition, rang me and said, 'I hated the puppets but loved your voice, would you come and do Toy Town and be Mr Grassen?' It went on from there. I still do a lot more theatre work than anything else, but gradually it sort of took over.