Razor-sharp stand-up performances plus an impressive range of genuinely hilarious characters including Paul Calf, his "lovely" sister Pauline and spoof chat show host Alan Partridge have ensured that the tag "comic genius" is an appropriate epithet for Coogan. "I'm convinced Steve is the next Peter Sellers," says Terry Jones.

It was the kudos and credibility of the other people working on the film that first attracted Steve Coogan to the project, "the Python factor," he admits. "The book was read to me at school so I was familiar with the abiding imagery of the story. Although my favourite character was always the car-obsessed Toad, Mole was the character I knew I could play best.

"Children's expectations in entertainment are so high today, and we all have such a huge craving for special effects that although a quaint version of a classic story might be laudable, it wouldn't satisfy a hungry audience. Terry has taken a realistic approach with THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS without compromising the integrity of the original story. There's a great deal of tension and edge-of-your-seat action in this film and the characters are really strong. Terry has injected tremendous vitality into the film. I suppose it's like a bit of Beatrix Potter, a bit of Die Hard," Coogan suggests, with a twinkle. "The other factor which will make the film work is the slightly off-the-wall, unorthodox sense of humour that Monty Python represents, and this prevents the film from being sentimental or sanctimonious in its message."

Steve Coogan was born and raised in Manchester, where he trained as an actor at Manchester Polytechnic School of Theatre. Whilst studying, Steve saw stand-up comedy as an easy way of obtaining his Equity Card and was soon spotted by a LWT talent scout and offered a spot on the TV show First Exposure. Coogan was immediately invited to perform on Live from the Palladium which led to a string of other TV appearances. For several years Coogan was also a regular voice on Spitting Image.

The character Alan Partridge was created for Radio 4's On the Hour and led to his own chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge. Both series were successes when transferred to BBC TV. His new TV series Coogan's Run has ensured further success.

Coogan won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1992, and there together with Ernest Moss and Duncan Thickett he launched his character Paul Calf. Coogan has since recorded best-selling live videos, won a 1995 BAFTA, and was voted Best Newcomer at the 1994 British Comedy Awards, and Top Male Comedy Performer and Top Comedy Personality in 1995.

Coogan is a relative newcomer to film. He has appeared in The Indian in the Cupboard.

ERIC IDLE - Rat

"Rat's like a junior son who went to Harrow but wasn't bright enough to get into Cambridge so he spends his time hanging out by the river, rowing and planning regattas," says Eric Idle. "He loves fun and picnics but at the first sign of trouble he's the right rat to have in your corner."

A former president of Cambridge's renowned Footlights Revue, Idle began his professional career writing for BBC's I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and soon moved in to British TV writing for a number of shows including The Frost Report, Marty Feldman and The Two Ronnies. In 1969, Idle joined the Monty Python's Flying Circus team and during a collaboration that lasted fourteen years, the comedy troupe made books, albums, films and CD-ROMS.

Idle is president of Prominent Features for which he wrote, executive produced and starred in Splitting Heirs. Other film credits include Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Nuns on the Run, Splitting Heirs, and most recently Casper.

Idle has a string of other credits which include his own TV series upon which he also based a book Rutland Weekend Television, a novel Hello Sailor, a West End play Pass the Butler, a BBC Radio musical Behind the Crease, a hit song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," and the part of Ko-Ko in Jonathan Miller's opera Mikado for the ENO and the Houston Grand Opera. Idle created, wrote and co-directed the highly successful Beatles parody The Rutles: All You Need is Cash as well as several other projects for NBC.

TERRY JONES - Toad, Director and Screenwriter

"Half the attraction making this film was the idea at the back of my mind that I might just cast myself as Toad," says Terry Jones. "I couldn't resist the chance to misbehave: ploughing through fields at top speed in a vintage motorcar and crashing through fences. It's the stuff of dreams! Toad represents the modern technofiend in all of us; he's dazzled by new toys but blind to their consequences."

Terry Jones was born in North Wales. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford and St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he first started writing and performing comedy and discovered a passion for the Medieval World. He worked as a script writer in the BBC and then teamed up with Michael Palin, writing and occasionally performing for such programmes as The Frost Report, Marty, The Late Show, The Complete and Utter History of Britain, etc. The two of them joined Eric Idle to make Do Not Adjust Your Set, a ground-breaking comedy series for children which occasionally featured animations by Terry Gilliam. In 1969 John Cleese and Graham Chapman suggested doing a show together and the result was Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Terry co-directed the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam, and directed Monty Python's Life of Brian, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Personal Services and Erik the Viking. He also wrote the screenplay for Jim Henson's Labyrinth.

For television he directed the Barcelona episode of The Chronicles of Young Indian Jones. He also made several documentaries, including The Rupert Bear Story, and most recently a much acclaimed historical series, Crusades (BBC TV and A&E Channel).

In 1981 he published a controversial academic book, Chaucer's Knight, which led to invitations to lecture in universities around the world including Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard.

He has also written several books for children: Fairy Tales, The Saga of Erik the Viking (Winner of the Children's Book Award), Nicobobinus (Parent's Choice Recommendation), Fantastic Stories (Winner of the Smarties Book Prize) and a book of verse, The Curse of the Vampire's Socks. He has also collaborated with the artist Brian Found on two books: Goblins of the Labyrinth and Lady Cottingham's Pressed Fairy Book. He also wrote a column for The Guardian newspaper.

ANTONY SHER - Chief Weasel

"Terry Jones and I worked together very happily in his latest film, Erik the Viking so of course I was delighted when another of his scripts landed on my doormat," says Sher. "I was brought up in South Africa and don't remember the story as a child, but I loved it when I first read it. The story is a classic because it deals with universal emotions, and exposes human beings to be really quite vulnerable. Toad, despite his pomposity, actually has a real problem, an addiction which gets him into trouble. In the film the money-grabbing weasels reflect the commercial ruthlessness in modern society. The Chief Weasel is the particularly relishing villain of the piece, which is great fun to play. It's an instinctive role. Terry and I didn't feel we needed to sit down and soul search the character. The Chief Weasel is like all those Charlie Chaplin villains. He's an upper-class English toff with a Busby Berkeley swinging tail."

Winner of the Olivier and Evening Standard Best Actor awards and widely considered one of the country's finest actors, the Richard III of his generation, Antony Sher chronicled his experiences of playing the hunchback in Year of the King. 1988 saw the publication of his first novel, Middlepost which was set in his native South Africa and quickly became a bestseller.

Sher began his acting career treading the boards in the Liverpool and Nottingham Playhouses, working with directors such as Richard Eyre and Alan Dosser, and soon began to attract attention in the West End transfer of John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert, and subsequently in Mike Leigh's Goosepimples and in Schlesinger's True West.

Sher has consistently played first fiddle within the Royal Shakespeare Company, an opinion confirmed by his performances as Shylock, the Fool in King Lear, and in the eponymous roles in Moliere, Tartuffe and Richard III. For the National, Sher gave mesmerising performances, more recently in Stanley, Titus Andronicus, The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui and Uncle Vanya, and in the West End he was triumphant in the controversial Torch Song Trilogy. Sher's film credits include The Young Poisoner's Handbook, Erik the Viking, Genghis Cohen and Shadey.

NICOL WILLIAMSON - Badger

"Badger is the stoic to whom all the other characters run when they're in trouble," says Williamson of the gruff old traditionalist he plays. "They ask him to plead their cause or to take up clubs on their behalf. But into the bargain, he's also a wild and woolly Scot. I play Badger very straight. It's a question of making the animal a person, and I make Badger funny in his reactions.

"People need their dreams, the ability to place themselves in a world of imagination. In THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, Grahame has created that magical world. There is a darkness to the story: moral overtones, a sense of an Orwellian threat, and a struggle between a rural fellowship against totalitarianism. Although Toad is a reprobate, there is also a side to him which is manipulative and cunning. He plays the sort of games that children play - and you can't fool kids. At the same time there is also in the film enough action on planes, in cars, in fights and in swinging from chandeliers to keep the pace fast and grip the audience."

Born in Scotland, Williamson is a forceful performer who made an auspicious feature debut reprising his performance as the promiscuous, boorish lawyer whose world collapses in John Osborne's 1968 stage hit Inadmissable Evidence. This production triumphed both in London and America and he performed to international acclaim in Macbeth and Coriolanus.

Williamson gave the first legitimate acting and singing performance in the White House, Washington D.C.

His four television performances include Of Mice and Men, Macbeth, Arturo Ui and a mini-series, Mountbatten, The Last Viceroy.

Primarily a stage actor, Williamson's screen output has been relatively spare. He has however turned in several outstanding performances: as an angry young businessman in The Reckoning, a cocaine-tooting Sherlock Holmes in The Seven Percent Solution, and as a scatterbrained Merlin in Excalibur. His most recent film performance was in The Hour of the Pig.

He has recorded with many of the greatest jazz musicians in Britain. He has written (with Leslie Megahey) a play, Jack which he performed in London and Los Angeles and will soon take to Broadway, and has recently completed his first novel, Ming's Kingdom.

JOHN CLEESE - Mr. Toad's Lawyer

"Terry Jones turned up one evening whilst we were shooting Fierce Creatures and asked me to play the Defense Counsel. It would be misleading to call this film a Python reunion but we do tend to crop up in each other's projects simply because we enjoy working together, especially when the script is good. I suppose what we have in this film is an interesting mixture of thespians and comics.

"I love films like this which you can take kids to. On the whole I'm disappointed by sugary, Hollywood family movies. It's great when you have something like this which is a little eccentric. The idea of a Defense Counsel who is so disgusted by his client's behaviour that he gives up defending him and begins to sound more like the prosecutor is wonderful. Terry is always drawn to such mythical, fabulous material."

Cleese first shot to fame in The Frost Report in 1966 and in 1969 co-created Monty Python's Flying Circus. The team went on to conquer the world with three cult TV series and four hugely successful films: And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and The Meaning of Life. Cleese soon when on in 1974 to create the irrepressible Basil Fawlty in one of the most successful TV series ever made: Fawlty Towers.

Cleese's writing, directing and acting credits for stage and television are almost too numerous to mention but include: The Secret Policeman's Ball which he directed for Amnesty International in 1979 and The Secret Policeman's Other Ball which he co-directed for both stage and screen in 1981, the BBC's production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew in which he played Petruchio, and Whoops Apocalypse for LWT.

In 1983 he published his first book Families and How to Survive Them (co-written with Dr. Robyn Skinner), which was produced as a series for Radio 4 in 1990. The book remains a bestseller and its sequel Life and How to Survive It was published in 1993.

As well as his work with Monty Python, Cleese's film credits as an actor include The Great Muppet Caper, Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, Privates on Parade, Silverado, Clockwise, Terry Jones' Erik the Viking, Eric Idle's Splitting Heirs, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and The Jungle Book. In 1988 Cleese starred in and co-wrote one of the most successful British films of all time, A Fish Called Wanda, and in 1995 produced, co-wrote and starred in the new comedy featuring the same cast, Fierce Creatures.

STEPHEN FRY - The Judge

According to Stephen Fry, "It was the prospect of playing a judge that attracted me to the film in the first place." However he does admit to having a fondness for the story. "THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS is a very unpompous story. It mocks Edwardian stuffiness and is a paean to the riverbank. Terry Jones has created a world you would want to dive into. The story can however be interpreted as a green text; the wickedness of the developers, the weasels, is as modern as anything today.

"As the Judge I'm one of the few human beings in the whole courtroom. Terry Jones has emphasised the human side of all the animals. I suppose we are all divisible into some kind of animal. There is really no vast distinction between the human judge and the rabbit jury. Nor for that matter do we seem surprised to have a jury of rabbits. For some reason this convention seems to have its own logic."

Stephen Fry has been hugely popular throughout his career in the UK and has contributed enormously to television, film and radio. Whilst at Cambridge he joined the Footlights along with Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie, and appeared in over 30 plays. He also wrote his first play, Latin, which won a Scotsman Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival in 1980.

His vast list of television appearances include Alfresco, The Young Ones, Happy Families, Blackadders II and III, Alias Smith and Jones, The Lenny Henry Show, Filthy Rich and Catflap, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Old Flames, This is David Lander, Anything More Would Be Greedy, Return to Plum Creek, Stalagluft, Jeeves and Wooster, Cold Comfort Farm and The Thin Blue Line.

Film credits include The Good Father, The Secret Policeman's Other Ball, A Handful of Dust, A Fish Called Wanda and IQ. He also played Peter in Kenneth Branagh's Peter's Friends.

His radio work includes such gems as Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Saturday Night Fry, Loose Ends, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, The News Quiz and Just a Minute.

In 1984 he wrote the book for the hit West End musical Me and My Girl and in 1991 his first novel was published. The Liar was a bestseller and soon after followed by a collection of his writings, Paperweight. His third opus, The Hippopotamus, was published in Spring 1994.

BERNARD HILL - The Engine Driver

Talking of his experience on the film, Bernard Hill who plays the friendly engine driver says, "The engine driver finds it instantly acceptable when an amphibian dressed in a lace bonnet and corset announces that he is in fact The Famous Mr. Toad. He doesn't bat an eyelid at this extraordinary claim. It's this suspension of reality together with a wonderful romantic wash that will appeal to everyone."

An acclaimed stage, TV and film performer, Hill trained at Manchester Art College and at the Everyman Theatre Liverpool and has proved his versatility in roles ranging from the reticent, reluctant hero of Bellman and True to the boorish husband of Shirley Valentine.

Other lead roles include It Could Happen to You, A Choice of Weapons, The Black Stuff, The Sailor's Return, Gandhi, Runners, Squaring the Circle, The Bounty, The Chain, Restless Natives, Milwr Bychan, New World, No Surrender, Drowning by Numbers and Mountains of the Moon.

Hill put in a brilliant performance in Alan Bleasdale's outstanding TV series Boys From the Blackstuff, and in 1995 Hill played Eddie Carbone in David Thacker's production of Arthur Miller's View From a Bridge. Hill has recently finished film Ghost and the Darkness with Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer.

MICHAEL PALIN - The Sun

Michael Palin gained a degree in history from Oxford University before becoming a founding member of the Monty Python team both on stage, television, and in film.

Palin's collaboration with individual members of the Python team has spanned several decades and includes two television series of Ripping Yarns (1977/1979) for the BBC which he wrote with Terry Jones, the film Time Bandits (1980) written with Terry Gilliam, BBC2's Screen Two East of Ipswich written with Jones (1985), as well as playing Eric Manchester in Eric Idle's The Rutles (1978).

1982 was a busy year for Palin starring in both The Missionary with Maggie Smith and Trevor Howard and Python's The Meaning of Life. Palin was teamed again with Maggie Smith in A Private Function (1984).

In the mid-1980s Palin began writing with a vengeance and has since produced several children's books including four for children Cyril and the Dinner Party, Cyril and the House of Commons, Harry and the Toothache Pills and The Mirrorstone, the film American Friends (in which he also starred), the television play No. 27 and documentaries The Chairman and Transport 2000.

As well as his portrayal of the unfortunate Ken in A Fish Called Wanda, Palin is perhaps most recently best known for his globe trotting adventures. He spend several months in 1988 travelling abroad filming BBC TV's Around the World in 80 Days which was nominated for four Ace Awards in the US and in 1991 his itchy feet led him from the North to the South Pole filming Pole to Pole. He has written best-selling and award-winning books detailing his adventures from both series.

Palin continues spreading his talents across all spheres of the media to this day. For television he has made A Class Act (1992), the four-part series Palin's Column (1993) and Great Railway Journeys (1994) for which he also wrote an accompanying book, and for radio The Dresser (1993). 1994 saw the first performance of Palin's West End play The Weekend and in 1995 he published his first novel Hemingway's Chair which went into the best-sellers list.

His love of travel continues as in August 1995, just a few days after completing filming of Fierce Creatures, Palin set off on a nine-month trip around the Pacific Rim for a further series of his popular Television travel programmes.

NIGEL PLANER - Car Salesman

Nigel Planer occupies a special place in British showbusiness. He is a unique talent, a gifted dramatic actor with an uncanny ability for comedy. Idiosyncratic roles include the unforgettable and endlessly imitated hippy student Neil in BBC's The Young Ones.

Planer has worked extensively in TV and played leading roles in series such as Shine on Harvey Moon, Rollover Beethoven, The Comic Strip Presents, Filthy Rich and Catflap and King and Castle. He played a leading role in acclaimed dramas such as Blackeyes, Frankenstein's Baby, Number 27 and Two Lumps of Ice.

As a celebrated entertainer he is consistently guaranteed guest appearances on some of Britain's top comedy shows: Blackadder III, The Lenny Henry Show, French and Saunders and The Trials of Oz to name but a few.

No stranger to theatre, Planer played Che for over forty performances in the original cast of Evita. Serious roles include taking over from Michael Gambon in Ayckbourn's Man of the Moment in the West End, and comedy credits include one-man shows, and a tour with spoof rock band "Bad News."

Planer has written extensively for TV and the media, including 35 new episodes of The Magic Roundabout for Channel 4, and has had published several books. His film credits include Yellowbeard, Supergrass, Brazil, More Bad News, Carry on Columbus and Clockwork Mice.

JULIA SAWALHA - The Jailer's Daughter

Julia Sawalha wasted no time in accepting the part of the jailer's daughter. "I didn't even read the script I was that keen to get involved. It's brilliant working with Terry. He's so relaxed. The jailer's daughter takes a bit of a fancy to Toad and helps him to escape. She's very fond of Toad and feels sorry for him - and of course the odd five guineas in return for helping him doesn't go amiss!"

Julia was voted Best Female Performer by the Royal Television Society for her role in the drama Press Gang and was subsequently cast as the put-upon and politically correct daughter, Saffron, in Jennifer Saunders' three series of Absolutely Fabulous. Julia's celebrity status was sealed when Saffie was voted the role model most admired by teenagers today.

Before "AbFab," Julie has worked extensively in supporting roles in television drama including episodes of Inspector Morse and Casualty. She played in three series of Second Thoughts and also made her mark as Mercy Pecksniff in the BBC's highly acclaimed Martin Chuzzlewit. She scored a hit as Lydia Bennett in the top-ratings BBC drama Pride and Prejudice and most recently starred in the TV drama Faith in the Future.

Sawalha has worked often in the theatre with the late Ken Hill, appearing in his productions of Peter Pan, The Silver Chair and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and also played Hermia in Rob Swinton's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She recently starred along with Michael Maloney, Joan Collins and Jennifer Saunders in Kenneth Branagh's romantic comedy feature In the Bleak Midwinter.

VICTORIA WOOD - The Tea Lady

"I love THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS," confesses Victoria Wood, "and this is a great part to do because I get to wear lots of padding and a bra stuffed with bird seed."

Victoria Wood has become one of Britain's most loved top comics. Born in Lancashire, she studied Drama at Birmingham University and began her career whilst still a student, appearing on several local programmes for BBC Pebble Mill. She soon went on to win New Faces and made regular appearance's on BBC1's That's Life and Radio 4's Start the Week, performing topical songs.

Following stints in the '70s playing clubs and late-night theatres, Wood's first play, Talent, was commissioned and premiered in Sheffield. Talent won her two awards, the Plays and Players Award and the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright. Other theatre credits include Good Fun and Funny Turns.

Talent was adapted for TV and when it was broadcast in 1979 starred herself and Julie Walters. This led to other TV credits, Nearly a Happy Ending, Happy Since I Met You, and the celebrated Wood and Walters. Victoria Wood - As Seen on TV won showers of awards as did the subsequent series.

Later specials, An Audience with Victoria Wood, Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast and Victoria Wood - Live in Your Own Home, a screenplay, Pat and Margaret won Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Single Drama.

In 1996 Victoria won a best comedy performer award and the Eric Morcombe Life Achievement Award for services to comedy. She is one of the top box office stars in Britain having achieved a record-breaking fifteen sold-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall on her last tour.

ROBERT BATHURST - St. John Weasel

"St. John is really a foil to the Chief Weasel. Terry Jones has extended the wickedness of the weasels in the film. In Kenneth Grahame's book, the most evil deed of the weasels was trespass. Terry's weasels are more murderous, if incompetent."

Robert Bathurst has an impressive list of television credits to his name including the starring role in the BBC sitcom Joking Apart. He was recently involved in the Riverside Festival of one-off comedy sitcoms for Channel 4.

At Cambridge, Bathurst toured Australia with the Footlights Revue, together with Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson after which he trained as a lawyer. Other theatre productions include a two-hour monologue about cannibalism, Noises Off and classics by Shakespeare, Shaw and Wilde. He was named 1995's Most Underrated Comedy Actor by the Daily Express.

Bathurst's film credits include a leading role in Twenty-One, Whoops Apocalypse and Just Ask for Diamond.

THE SENTRY - Don Henderson

As an amateur actor Don accepted a date from a colleague to audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was accepted on the spot and stayed with the RSC for six years. During that time he played in a variety of plays including All's Well That Ends Well, Indians and Melodrama in New York.

In 1977 Don appeared in The XYY Man. His character, Det. Sgt. Bulman was such a hit that two separate spin off series were later commissioned: Strangers and Bulman. Other television credits include Jumping the Queue for which he earned a BAFTA nomination, Two Point Four Children, The New Statesman, The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Cookery, Black and Blue, Short and Curlies and The Paradise Club which won the RTS Best Drama Award and for which he was again given a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor.

On film he has appeared in Star Wars, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Callan, Reagan, The Big Sleep, The Island, Baron Munchausen, As You Like It, My Friend Walter, White Angel, The Trial, The Fool, Carry on Columbus, The Baby of Macon and The Prison Colony.

RICHARD JAMES - Geoffrey Weasel & Mole's Clock

"The weasels are fantastic. They have elegance and style and are always done up to the nines, but underneath they have some very nasty schemes. It's great to play such a double-sided character: smooth and suave on the outside, with real malice lurking on the inside.

"When I learnt that Terry Jones was directing I suddenly wanted to do the film very much indeed. And then I learnt that Antony Sher who was one of the main reasons for my wanting to become an actor, was also starring. He's always been a great hero of mine. It's extraordinary to find myself not only acting opposite him but also talking to him as a friend off set."

James trained at the Bristol Old Vic where he cut his acting teeth in various roles: Bartholomew Fair, Caprice, Side by Side by Sondheim, Our Country's Good, As You Like It, The Canterbury Tales and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. He has since acquired TV credits in Space Precinct, Macgyver, Love Hurts, Drop the Dead Donkey and Pie in the Sky. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS is his first feature film.

KEITH-LEE CASTLE - Clarence Weasel

This is Keith-Lee Castle's first film and he feels that he couldn't have started with a better part. "Clarence Weasel is very ambitious and greedy, and together with Geoffrey he is determined to take over the Chief Weasel's patch."

Castle's CV includes playing Graveston opposite Eddie Izzard in Edward II. Terry Jones saw Castle in the part and telephoned him shortly after to ask him to audition for the role of Clarence Weasel.

Professionally, Castle's theatre credits include Total Eclipse, Wittgenstein's Daughter, Amphibious Babies, Miss Julie, A Hatful of Rain, The Rover and Woyzek.