What happened to the actors who turned the Oxo family advert into a soap opera?

The Oxo Family featured in a series of 42 advertisements until the campaign ended in 1999.

Now the company has decided to create a 21st-century version of the clan whose lives were transformed so magically by a simple stock cube.

So the Daily Mail's LAURA ROBERTS set out to discover: Whatever happened to the Oxo Family?

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MICHAEL REDFERN, 64

Then: Semi-domesticated Oxo dad who struggled to help out in the kitchen. In 1991 he had to make supper for the family and burnt it.

Now: Says Oxo typecast him and ruined his career - unsuccessfully applied to be grandfather in the new Oxo family.

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Cab driver who emigrated to Spain with wife of 35 years and now makes ends meet compering quiz nights and giving after dinner speeches.

Says: "It's been tough since the advert finished. It's tough for all actors my age. We hit 40 and they think we are past it."

LYNDA BELLINGHAM

Then: Quintessential middle-class mum armed with platefuls of steaming shepherd's pie.

Now: Engaged to a former conman who spent a year in jail for fraud. Currently an occasional panellist on the daytime TV chat show Loose Women after being axed from The Bill.

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Says: "It didn't destroy my career, but it did colour it in a way I had an inkling it might.

Then: Eldest child. Remembered for moving in with girlfriend to the horror of his mum.

BLAIR McKIHAN, 43

Now: Successful pop singer turned songwriter. Won Brit Award for Will Young song Your Game in 2005 - also writes for Lily Allen and Emma Bunton.

Lives with Anna, partner of five years, in Hastings.

Says: "It was the only acting I have ever done.

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After the Oxo family I got a recording deal with Mercury records and it went from there and I toured Europe and America.

"I have had four different record deals and when they dried up I started writing songs for other people - like Will Young and Lily Allen. I am writing a piece for Emma Bunton right now."

COLIN McCOY, 35

Then: From aged 13, played youngest son for 11 years. Remembered for teasing his sister about vegetarian boyfriend Troy.

Now: Divorced with three sons he lives in Highgate, North London. Trained as a forensic chemist but wanted to be a professional magician - performs a cabaret magic act at weddings.

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Works for Woolworths as a senior quality control manager visiting chocolate factories.

Says: "It definitely helped with the ladies when I was younger when people recognised me. I still do magic cabaret so I do still like the performing side.

"I was absolutely gutted when the ads were dropped. You just know you are never going to experience that again. I think to succeed in acting you need to be 100 per cent dedicated - which I wasn't able to be."

ALISON REYNOLDS, 31

Then: Debuted aged eight as the precocious daughter and filmed the final episode aged 23.

Catchphrase was: "What's for dinner Mum?" Now: Full-time mother in Dagenham, Essex, with two young sons, Kai, four, and Wyn, three.

Met husband Andrew Levell, an electrician, at Viking battle re-enactment. Says: "People often ask me if I was at school with them or if I used to live in their area because the public have seen me grow up."

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The revived advert will contain a 21st century multi-cultural, multiracial family.

Directors have been looking for three children - a 12-year-old girl, a boy of nine, a toddler, two parents and two grandparents. More than 100 actors were seen over two days in London last week.

The first Oxo television commercial appeared on screen in 1958 in the form of Katie - played by Mary Holland - a devoted wife committed to caring for her husband Philip, played by Richard Clarke.

She declared that Oxo "gives each meal man-appeal" and appeared for 18 years before being phased out in 1970 in favour of humorous adverts starring Dennis Waterman.

The Oxo Family campaign was launched in 1983. Britain quickly warmed to the squabbling brood and after the first advert was aired sales rose by 10 per cent.