Speaking on the BBC's Panorama programme, Labour peer Lord Richard Rogers compares the dome to an orchestra without a conductor, or a circus without a ringmaster:

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"What we haven't as yet got is what I would call the ringmaster who actually has the overall concept and decides which animal jumps first if you like..It's one thing to have a wonderful piece of music, but someone has actually got to give that concert an order."

Lord Rogers says the government now has only a month or two to find the right person. He says the government should appoint someone from TV or show business. A politician like Peter Mandelson or a civil servant, he says, wouldn't be the right person.

His warning comes on the eve of a long-awaited announcement by the prime minister on what exhibitions will be contained in the Dome and a day after the minister overseeing the �758-million-pound project, Peter Mandelson, caused a political row by announcing there would be a "Baby Dome" alongside, a 6,000-seater venue for the performing arts.

On the need for an impresario, Mr Mandelson admits in the programme that "possibly further down the line we will need somebody who sort of glues it all together" but says he is now "perfectly satisfied by the creative process so far and the way its been organised within the company".

Stephen Bayley, who resigned as creative director of the project tells Panorama, "unless there was decisive creative management, it could be crap".

The lack of a ringmaster means decisions about the Dome's contents - such as the gender of the enormous figure that will dominate the body zone - are currently taken on what the Chief Executive of the New Millennium Experience Company, Jenny Page, told Panorama was a 'corporate basis'.

Miss Page said her own preference for the figure was that it should be female, "I like the idea of a female figure not the least because I think it can have many associations".

The designer of the body, Julian Pullan says "It's quite possible that as we develop up the exterior design for the body it could become incredibly abstract. So rather than it becoming just androgynous I think its more of a case that it won't necessarily be obviously male or female".

Minister Without Portfolio Peter Mandelson said: "I'm quite agnostic on whether the great figure is maleish, femaleish or nothingish at all".

Panorama has been exclusively behind the scenes with the designers of the body and reveals that the model for the millennium figure is a young female dancer Naomi Crouch, 22. She tells Panorama: "I'm going to be millennium man, it's a bit of a strange feeling having the thought of people walking up my body for years to come. I hope it doesn't tickle. It's a non-sex type of thing. It's not really a man or a woman. They just need a body."