You dirty rat

A new animated film of the Ugly Duckling fairytale features Irish comedian Morgan Jones as a friendly rat. He made his recordings three years ago, in isolation from the other actors, and in a Danny De Vito accent. But somehow it all works, he tells Denis Clifford

HANS Christian Andersen's tale The Ugly Duckling has inspired a variety of responses since its publication in 1843, ranging from Disney adaptations to treatises on gay subtexts. A new animated film, The Ugly Duckling and Me, goes further by daring to tamper with HC's narrative magic. Its chief departure from tradition is the central role given to new character Ratso, a scheming rodent who finds himself as the unlikely guardian of Ugly, the eponymous duckling.

Ratso is voiced by Dubliner Morgan Jones in both the the film and its accompanying television series, which were produced by Danish studio A Film in association with Galway's Magma Films. Jones has worked as a voiceover artist for several years and his voice will be familiar to Irish TV viewers, not least for his part as the irritable blue guy on those ace Lotto commercials.

"I've done so many radio and television ads that I can't remember a lot of them," he says. "I used to be a stand-up comedian, but I got tired of that because you're always on the road and I missed my kids a lot. So I got involved in radio and television, mostly voiceovers for ads, which suited me better. They're quick to do and they can be a lot of fun."

The Ugly and Duckling and Me is Jones's first feature-length movie and he explains that the protracted nature of animation makes the experience different to his other work. "I recorded my parts for the film three years ago. That means you become removed from the whole thing. When I do television work, I get very critical of it, because it happened so recently and I'm still wrapped up in it. In animation, because of the time delay, you're kinda distant from it. I'm not the same person who recorded that, it was so long ago. And you tend to forget what happens, so you can just sit back and enjoy it like everyone else."

Voice actors on animated films generally record their segments separately, a process which Jones compares to having a one-sided conversation. "You don't usually meet the other actors. When doing Ugly Duckling, the only actor I worked with was Justin Gregg, who plays the teenage Ugly. We had a great dynamic going on, because he's really tall, like Ugly, and I'm not so tall, like Ratso. That was great fun.

"Usually, though, you're on your own. That can be strange if there's an argument in the script: you work up great momentum, with maybe Ratso going crazy, and you suddenly have to pause and then start off again."

Ratso's American accent (think Danny DeVito) was non-negotiable, given that the producers' eyes were fixed firmly on the US market. Other characters, however, speak in a range of tones. A flock of rowdy seagulls, two of whom were voiced by Jones, have thick Irish brogues.

"They asked us to make them 'lads', so they ended up being Irish lads," he laughs.

The father of six is something of an expert on animated films and gives short shrift to the majority of them. "They're mostly dross, you'd need matchsticks to keep your eyes open a lot of the time. I think Ugly Duckling is genuinely entertaining in that it's multi-layered: kids and adults laugh at the same jokes but for different reasons."

He agrees, however, that the "ugly" duckling is actually cute as a button. "The film is mostly a Danish project and they have an odd way of looking at things. Ugly was probably hideous originally, but the Irish might have persuaded them that kids wouldn't go for that . . ."