Harpenden teenager lands voice of Thomas the Tank Engine after keeping it secret for months
The 13-year-old told classmates he was going to physiotherapy to hide his recording sessions
A teenager from Hertfordshire has been announced as the new voice of Thomas the Tank Engine.
Harry Sparkes, a 13-year-old from Harpenden, is making his professional voice-over debut in an all-new animated series in the long-running franchise.
Over the past nine months, the student kept his weekly recording sessions a secret, telling his classmates he was going to physiotherapy for a foot injury.
"It feels amazing, because I played and watched Thomas as a kid, and now I get to be Thomas. It just feels insane," he said.
Harry said he was excited he gets "to be part of something which kids from the next generation will get to grow up to watch".
He added that he thought his friends would be shocked to find out he was voicing the character.
"I think my friends will react really weirdly to hearing like someone that they see every day and hearing their own voice just come out of TV, because it's not something which you would normally see in school. So yeah, I think it would just be crazy," he said.
The new series, titled Thomas & Friends Railway Stories, launches with a special 30-minute episode called Really Helpful Engines on YouTube on 17th September.
It will then air on Channel 5's Milkshake! in October, with the full series set to debut in early 2027.
Actor Henry Golding, best known for appearing in Crazy Rich Asians and The Gentlemen, takes up the role of narrator, made famous by Sir Ringo Starr.
Mattel, which owns the franchise, said the new series will "introduce fans to a refreshed world of Sodor, while still celebrating the iconic railway action we have all known and loved since its debut as a classic book in 1945".
Thomas the Tank Engine first appeared in The Railway Series, a collection of British books by children's author Reverend Wilbert Awdry, first published in 1945.