‘Peppa Pig’ voice actor Morwenna Banks initially thought the show would be a flop.
The 55-year-old comedy actress has portrayed the beloved Mother Pig on the hit children’s series since it first hit television screens back in 2004 but she has admitted she didn’t think it would take off as well as it has done over the years.
Speaking to Philip Schofield and Sarah Greene on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ on Tuesday (04.04.17), where she was joined by Harley Bird, 15, who has voiced Peppa Pig since she was just five years old, Morwenna explained: "They came up with the idea of ‘Peppa Pig’ and they showed me a picture of her and said, ‘would you do some voices for this animation and they showed me a picture of Peppa and I thought,’ that is never going to work. Who’s going to go for that? It’s a pig in a dress, so I was like ‘I’m okay to come to for advice on any new project’s you’ve got.’"
Morwenna was persuaded to get on board with the project and she has since had a change of heart about the show, which follows the adventures of Peppa along with her family and friends – all of whom are represented by a different kind of animal with the characters being very humanlike whilst maintaining their animal traits.
Morwenna explained: "I think there is something really special about this, I do think the key is initially in the design – there is some incredibly relateable and beautiful about it and also in the writing and Neville and Mark who write all the scripts they are proper funny. They really mean it and they’re really genuine so it comes from a very true place – it’s not written by a committee which so much, certainly comedy and so much children’s television is because people are so afraid of expressing anything but Mark and Neville knew what they wanted to say, they said it and it really worked."