Jan
19
Accentuate the positive
January 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The World Service has a slightly stuffy reputation for being the last bastion of the traditional cut-glass BBC presenter voice of old. There do exist those voices on air and personally I luv ’em and a lot of listeners depend on them and associate them with a sense of authority, although if you listen a lot these days you’ll hear sooner or later some choice accents especially during the news bulletins at the top of each hour.
Old habits do die hard I guess. Just two days ago I was asked to do a voiceover for a programme. Upon hearing my (vastly reduced from what it was) Scottish accent my colleague asked if it could be made to sound ‘as English as possible’.
Lip biting is an art form when you’re a Scot in London and I’m an expert at it, but it was tough going into that recording booth and not delivering those two sentences in a style reminiscent of David Moyes having a drunken conversation with Kenny Daglish. The things we do in the line of duty . . .