The key facts

  • Emily McGonagle moved from law to voice acting in 2019 for a flexible schedule and childcare
  • She voices eight characters in the series Spike, released on Netflix on 12 October
  • The show became the platform's number one children's show in the UK and the seventh most-watched in the world in its first week

From night shifts in law to a home studio

Emily McGonagle, 42, from Colchester, began her career as a lawyer in London, where work often ran until three in the morning. After having children, she wondered whether she could keep up with that schedule and the daily commute from Colchester to Canary Wharf, and in 2019 she switched to remote voice acting, which allowed her to combine work with caring for her children. BBC News tells the story.

How her voice acting career began

The idea came when she was watching children's shows like Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig with her little ones and thought voice acting would be a 'cool job', but at first she dismissed it because she had no acting training. McGonagle equipped her home studio with professional audio equipment, attended auditions for several months, joined acting groups in Colchester, completed a six-week acting course in London and landed her first commission from Google. Three years ago she saw a casting call for Spike.

Spike became a hit on the platform

McGonagle voices eight characters in the series Spike, which premiered on Netflix on 12 October. According to her, the show became the number one children's series on the platform in the UK, and in its first week it ranked seventh among the most-watched Netflix shows worldwide. 'It's madness,' she said.

From a YouTube channel to a global release

The cartoon grew out of the preschool animation Fire Spike! on YouTube about the adventures of a dragon and his friends, created by the Lithuanian company Bored Panda, founded in 2009. When McGonagle joined the team, the channel had fewer than 1,000 subscribers and minimal views; now it has 1.25 million subscribers. Jonas Dovidaitis, head of animation at Bored Panda, wrote on social media before the Netflix debut that he could not 'believe how cool' it was that children around the world now watch the show on the platform. For readers of tafs.uz, the story is notable because it combines two threads: a career change for the sake of a flexible schedule and the rise of a project that in just a few years went from a YouTube channel with a thousand subscribers to a global streaming hit.

A woman with an enthusiastic facial expression wearing headphones and speaking into a microphoneImage source, Supplied
Image caption,

Emily McGonagle needed a career that better suited family life

A group of seven cartoon animals and creatures, including green dragons, in colourful human clothes, gather in an animated garden, depicting green grass and fencing. They are all smiling.Image source, Bored Panda
Image caption,

The cartoon follows the adventures of a dragon and his friends

Thomas Farnon. A black and white photo of Thomas Farnon. He has short dark hair and a dark stubble beard. He is wearing a black t shirt.A recent photo of the actor Rusty Goffe dressed as an Oompa Loompa on set in Willy Wonka's factory with tall candy canes and a chocolate river behind himSimon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison pose for photos at the world premiere of The Inbetweeners 2. The group are all wearing suits with skinny ties.