Austen and Eccleston joined BBC One's Saturday morning 3hr flagship Live & Kicking (1995–2000) as cantankerous Leprechauns Sage & Onion – built by Darryl Worbey Studios – while that other Irish phenomenon, Riverdance, packed houses in London's Theatreland.

Outliving three sets of in vision presenters, he became the longest surviving 'presenter' (Eccleston took time out to perform Rygel in the sci-fi series Farscape).

The Leps, as they were affectionately known, guest-starred on a wide range of British TV shows including The French and Saunders Christmas Special: The Making Of Titanic (1998), Jim Davidson's The Generation Game (1998), The National Lottery (1998), and GMTV for St. Patrick's Day Celebrations (1998 and 1999) During 1999, Austen was hand-picked by master puppeteer Frank Oz to help him portray Yoda in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Austen was also called upon to write and voice the game commentary to 'Supermarket Sneak' and, further to his portrayal of Ozzy Osbourne on MOM, performed in vision as Igor, a larger than life dancing Russian Cossack.

Austen notched up 6 series as voice and puppeteer on CBBC's Basil Brush Show (2002–2007) playing evil Cousin Mortimer and naughty nephews Bingo and Bungo.

In January 2008, Austen and Eccleston were invited to join the newly commissioned Fur TV team for MTV, performing the outrageous puppet characters Fat Ed and Mervin respectively.

In April 2008 International action hero Jackie Chan joined Austen and Eccleston in their latest Woolworths TV commercial.

Austen flew out to Sydney (2010) to join Australian puppeteers on the CBBC, Jim Henson, Sticky Productions, Me and My Monsters.