John Eccleston

John Eccleston is an English puppeteer writer and presenter known for his work as lead puppeteer of Rygel on Farscape1 Groove on The Hoobs and his many roles on British childrens television alongside Don Austen He was also behind the character Gilbert the Alien voiced by Phil Cornwell on Get Fresh He also performed Worth the Dog in the Woolworths adverts again opposite Don Austen as Wooly The Sheep Mervin J Minky on MTVs Fur TV and Rattus Rattus on the CBBC Horrible Histories series His in vision television career started as one of the original presenters of the UK version of the Mickey Mouse Club Disney Club the success of which led to his presenting Run the Risk The Big Dish the childrens magazine show Brill and Get The Picture for Nickelodeon It took seven years for him to realise he did not like being pointed at in the street and he has remained off screen ever since Eccleston who hails from Cumbria worked alongside Don Austen on the Saturday morning childrens show Whats Up Doc operating and providing the voices for the puppet wolves Bro and Bro Their writing skill on this show garnered a spinoff ITV show called Wolf It Eccleston was approached to provide new characters for the BBC series Live Kicking once again teaming up with Don Austen and Darryl Worbey to create two puppet leprechauns Mr Sage and Mr Onion The characters appeared from 1995 to 2001 outliving three sets of presenters4 Eccleston Austen and Worbey teamed up again to create the hyenas Scratch and Sniff with Eccleston playing Sniff on The Ministry of Mayhem later renamed Holly Stephens Saturday Showdown The characters recorded fifteen episodes of the game show Scratch n Sniffs Den of Doom for Granada Kids Eccleston also appeared in the awardwinning short film The Box directed by Michael J Bassett and also starring Paul Hendy Richard Orford and Laurence Akers Between 19961997 he participated on the second and third series of Jim Hensons Animal Show manipulating the puppet Yves St La Roache among others