Anyone out there speak Pinguish?

With his way of causing mischief and his fondness for talking total gibberish, Pingu became something of a cult TV classic. After several years without any new adventures, the plasticine penguin is about to make a comeback after a British company bought the rights from the Swiss developers in a £16million deal.

However, Hit Entertainment has been faced with one problem - how to reproduce Pingu's distinctive language - called Pinguish - in the 52 new episodes to be screened next year.

The 104 original shows were voiced by Italian clown Carlo Bonomi, who made up the dialogue as he went along. 'He is now in his 60s and, although he was considered, it was thought he sounded too old,' said a spokeswoman for the company, which also makes Bob The Builder. 'We want to make it as close to the original as possible.'