The Offcuts Drawer

I was delighted to contribute some more readings to Laura Shavin’s excellent podcast series the Offcuts Drawer, in which she interviews established writers and gets them to talk about some of their work which never ended up being used. This episode featured The Guardian’s foreign correspondent Luke Harding and was a fascinating insight into his experiences. The full episode is here and here I am reading an unpublished extract from Luke’s notebook about an unexpected meeting with the Taliban.

Enoch Arden

I am delighted to be giving a special live-streamed solo performance, together with the amazing classical pianist Gamal Khamis, of Tennyson's deeply touching narrative epic poem Enoch Arden, as set to music by Richard Strauss for speaker and piano. It's on Sunday 8th November at 4pm and viewable free of charge via www.st-marys-perivale.org.uk (and online afterwards) and lasts about an hour. With words and music of haunting beauty, Enoch Arden is a hidden gem of the romantic repertoire and a masterwork of the now almost lost genre of musical melodrama.

Mel in the house

Great to welcome old chum Mel Giedroyc to the studio this week to record the audio version of her forthcoming debut novel The Best Things. As you’d expect for such a consummate comic actor it’s drop dead hilarious and full of great gags and great characters. It’s due for publication in April 2021 and I’m confidently predicting it should be one of the year’s publishing sensations.

AEG Challenge the Expected

I was pleased to be asked to add my voice to this new campaign for AEG and it was interesting how it came about. My company CKUK Media was originally helping cast the spots and AEG’s brief was that they wanted the voice to be German-accented English. We know some great German voice actors and submitted two rounds of auditions to the client but nothing quite seemed to be working, so as a wild card in the second batch I threw in one of my own with a German accent. That’s the one the client chose without realising it was me, then when they did realise decided to get me to do it without any accent after all. Which just goes to show… I’m not sure what, except that it’s often worth persevering even in the face of unlikely odds!

Frozen 2

My kids always told me my voice was too scary when I read them bedtime stories so they think it’s hilarious that I’m doing trailers for Disney movies. That’ll teach them! Here’s one of the recent ones

Don't Miss It TVC campaign

Just before lockdown I was honoured to be invited to voice an international campaign for The Turkish Ministry of Culture. We recorded fifteen separate spots, each highlighting a different archeological site in Turkey. One can only hope that we’ll all be able to travel to such beautiful and remarkable places again soon…

My Last Supper

I was delighted recently to be invited to read unpublished extracts from My Last Supper and The Memory Man by Jay Rayner for Laura Shavin’s excellent podcast series The Offcuts Drawer. Here I am reading this touching piece about one of his mother Claire Rayner’s last meals. The series is a fascinating insight into the unpublished work of well-known writers. You can listen and subscribe at offcutsdrawer.com

Artemis Fowl

Another day, another deferred movie launch. Trailer campaign for Artemis Fowl completed then consigned to back burner but now, huzzah, streaming direct to Disney+ instead. Quick pivot: home studio link to LA, new trailers recorded and re-tagged. Job done!

No Time to Die

Here's one I made earlier... was just busy voicing the trailer campaign for new Bond movie “No Time to Die” when its April launch was postponed till November, due to the worldwide Coronavirus epidemic. For Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 director Cary Joji Fukunaga has produced a pulsatingly contemporary action movie, with standout guest performances from Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek and Lashana Lynch, and a sharply witty script, no doubt partly due to the involvement of the amazing Phoebe Waller-Bridge. To whet the appetite, here is one of the prototype audio trailers we had produced so far…

Odyssey - Words and Music of Finding Home

Following sell-out performances last November, the pianist Gamal Khamis and I are delighted to be bringing our acclaimed narrative recital Odyssey - Words and Music of Finding Home back to Jermyn Street Theatre in London’s West End on Sunday March 1st, and All Saints Church, Isleworth the previous evening 29th February. ODYSSEY tells the story of the aftermath of war, with the legend of Odysseus’s epic journey home from Troy to Ithaca interwoven with themes of journey, diaspora and migration explored through words and music, including specially commissioned works by six award-winning contemporary poets and composers. Their work is set alongside Homer’s original words in Emily Wilson’s acclaimed new translation, as well as works by Shakespeare, Bach, Debussy, and Clara Schumann to create another absorbing, moving and richly rewarding evening.

Praise for Odyssey:

“Such an inspiring and relevant show.”

“An incredibly moving performance.”

“What an amazing experience. So powerful, so hard hitting and so relevant.”

“What an inspiring and moving evening. So right for these times."

"Definitely food for the mind and the soul”

Said with a smile...

Here’s a very stylish corporate film that came through the studio recently via the clever folks at Shy Collective for German cosmetic dentistry giants Straumann . Who knew teeth could be so sexy…?

Seven Last Words

I'm delighted to be appearing In London with the Bridge Quartet in a mini-tour of Haydn's Seven Last Words 13-15 April, with all proceeds going to The Samaritans. We're aiming to recreate the original 1786 performance by interlacing Haydn's timeless, soul-searching music with readings by me of classic and contemporary secular poetry, including works by Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver, Philip Larkin and others. These will be moving and memorable events - please do join us.

Tickets £10 advance/£15 door. All proceeds to the Samaritans

Sat April 13 6pm St Michael & All Angels, Bedford Park, Chiswick W4 ITT www.ticketsource.co.uk/bridge-string-quartet

Sun April 14 7.30pm Jazz Room, The Bulls Head, Barnes SW13 9PY https://tickets.thebullsheadbarnes.com/

Mon April 15th 6pm Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, WC2H 8EP www.ticketsource.co.uk/bridge-string-quartet

Husqvarna TVC

Who knew you could mow a lawn like this? Nice TV spot from BBDO and nice of them to use my dulcets. I might want one of these.

The Aftermath

Director James Kent seems to be on a roll at the moment. MotherFatherSon with Richard Gere is one of the most compelling things on TV and here's one of the trailers I voiced recently for his romantic post-war movie The Aftermath with Keira Knightley, which is also well worth catching. Nice work by the team at Create UK for Fox Searchlight.

The beards have it...

Great to work with actor Roger Allam last week who was at the studio to record an Introduction to Buddhism, no less. We actually had a lot of fun so I'm not quite sure why we both look so miserable (though I’m probably wondering how I ended up with the greyer beard of the two). He is between series of ITV’s Endeavour and about to appear at the National Theatre in Rutherford and Sons.

The Composer is Dead

Great fun at the weekend narrating an orchestral concert with the fab West London Sinfonia and conductor Philip Hesketh as part of the 2019 Ealing Music & Film Festival. The Composer is Dead is a kind of musical whodunnit with a brilliant musical setting by US composer Nathaniel Stooky of Lemony Snicket’s book of the same name. The composer is dead so the Inspector is called in to the find the murderer (or murderers) among the instruments of the orchestra…with much ensuing hilarity. We had a blast!

The Girl in the Spider's Web

Claire Foy as you've never seen her before... This was a helluva movie and hyper cool trailer campaign from the team at AV Squad. Pleased to have voiced these.

A Call from Santa

And while we’re on the subject of Christmas, here’s a reprise of a fun Santa item we put together a couple of years ago (with apologies for the old boy’s fruity language!).

Von Shef Christmas spots

Now here are some good Christmas gift ideas. Any of these will do thanks, Santa. Very nice web spot from the clever people at Domu Brands and a nice campaign to work on.

Uvex Sports Performance

I enjoyed working on this really cool image film from the creative team at Stilbezirk in Nürnberg. Some pretty cool gear too…