Ollie Smith

Less time than you think because I pitched the idea to the publishers and they were like, great, we love it.

Can we have it in three or four months?

And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd be fine.

And I used to have a background in screenwriting.

I used to write for kids' shows like Pingu and Charlie and Lola and Wallace and Gromit and all that.

Massive Charlie and Lola fan.

Are you really?

What about Pingu though?

Pingu.

How did you get into that?

So I was, when I was kind of coming through the ranks, I was working in the wine shop and I was at uni and I studied English Lit and Film.

And I really loved being, you know, doing stand up, being in bands, you know, doing a bit of performing.

You know, obviously wine was in the background, but I love putting shows together.

I love writing, you know, new material, you know, writing cabarets, anything that would come along.

So when I left uni, that was kind of my stock in trade.

I went straight down as everybody does to Radio 4 to try and get, you know, a few breaks, managed to get a couple of breaks, managed to sell an animation series to the BBC for development.

And that kind of put me on the map a bit for being a specialist in writing cartoons.

So that was how Pingu came about.

And then from Pingu, it was Charlie and Lola.

Then it was Wallace and Gromit.