Who knows what it is about monkeys and Boards, but we just love them. So, needless to say, Chump, the dumb, sex-obsessed test monkey in space is right up our alley.

The "psychic enema" of Aardman animation director Sam Fell, Chump is a four-minute live-action puppet short about a monkey and a foul-mouthed, petulant lab rat floating in a space vessel, forced to carry out experiments on each other.

Written while Fell was convalescing from a fall that resulted in a broken back, Chump is inspired by old sci-fi and B-movies. "I just wrote the most outrageous thing I could think of writing," says Fell. Fellow Aardman director Darren Walsh voiced the Chump character, while Fell got right cantankerous to voice Rat.

A marked departure from traditional Aardman animation (Wallace & Grommit, Chicken Run), Fell says experimental and wacky films are not new to the shop. "It's something we've always been doing. Because well-known stuff is so successful, it tends to overshadow other stuff. There was a bit of a gap on our showreel. There was definitely room for a masturbating monkey."

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