Creating Rex - Radio Times, February 2007

Features

Creating Rex - Radio Times, February 2007

Hannah Spearritt and Rex in Primeval © ITV

If the producers of Primeval have anything to do with it, then next Christmas's top-selling toy will not be a Cyberman mask or a Buzz Lightyear, but rather a cuddly Coelurosauravus jaeckeli.

Kids, however, will know him just as Rex, the cutesy flying dragon who becomes Abby's sidekick after he's discovered hiding in a boy's bedroom. For the rest of the series, Abby keeps him - secretly, for the most part - in her flat with the central heating on full blast to make him feel at home.

"He'll come and go, but he's a regular. A part of the team," says series writer Adrian Hodges. "What we wanted with Rex was to strike a reasonable balance between something that was a relatively cute, amiable creature, but also credible and not too Disneyfied. Now clearly Rex is smarter than your average coelurosauravus and we have given him some characteristics that are more anthropomorphised than a prehistoric creature because, frankly, I want people to love him."

While most of the creatures in Primeval are purely computer-generated, Rex also exists in real life, in the form of an eerily detailed, 3ft-long, animatronic model, that currently takes pride of place on Hodges' mantelpiece. A remote control moves his head, his tail and opens out his wings - because Coelurosauravus jaeckeli had extensions on its ribs that it used to glide. It was the first known vertebrate flyer.

"If you saw him from a few yards away and you weren't expecting it, you'd jump a few yards back," says Hodges of his own pet Rex. But after that, you'd just want to take him home.

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Now take a look at our full Primeval guide.

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