Who knew you could give gold bullion bars for Christmas? I was pleased to add my voice to this rather classy national radio spot for The Royal Mint with superior production by the ace Steve Henderson at Global. That's the Christmas shopping sorted then...
Well this one was a fun trailer to voice for The Enfield Poltergeist on Apple TV. The producers asked for a Hammer Horror pastiche along the lines of Vincent Price or Peter Cushing. Turned out rather well, we all thought. Damned creepy show though...definitely one to watch from behind the sofa!
It’s always nice when work and personal interest overlap… here’s a booth-eye view at IMG for The Spirit of Yachting ep 04 series 7, airing this weekend (26/27 Aug) on BBC News Channel. The conditions for the 2023 Fastnet Race were spectacular, but I was pleased to be on dry land for this one.
It's been a great pleasure for some years now to work with legendary Emmy-award winning writer and ESPN producer Jeff Sarokin on his annual trips to Wimbledon. Jeff's work is always so lyrical and imaginative - more like mood films than traditional sports promos. This is the preview we made for ESPN’s coverage of the Men's Final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic last week (and what a game that was).
Many thanks to all at London’s Jermyn Street Theatre for the packed sell-out performance and great reception last night for AN EXQUISITE HARMONY, our story about the lives, loves and music of Robert & Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Thanks too to Gamal Khamis for his beautiful playing and to Sarah Sherborne for so elegantly standing in for the indisposed Fenella Norman (now happily recovered). More dates to follow...
Medical voiceovers are one of those agreeable challenges that arrive in the studio from time to time. Usually there are a few long words to check out and get the chops round but really the task is the same as in any other form of v/o... engaging the listener with the narrative and trying to make the complicated sound clear. Here’s a new demo of recent examples.
It was very good to be back at leading London studio The Soundhouse today to record new characters and narration for the latest edition of the Stronghold games franchise with old friends Firefly Studios, almost exactly twenty years since the first version we did together. How time flies!
We are delighted with the new trailer for An Exquisite Harmony, our show about the Lives, Loves and Music of Robert & Clara Schumann & Johannes Brahms, featuring Fenella Norman, Gamal Khamis (piano) and me.
Forthcoming performances are as follows:
Sunday June 25th, 5pm - All Saints Church, Church Street, Isleworth, TW7 6BE (opposite the London Apprentice by the river). Free with retiring collection
Sunday July 16th, 5pm - Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London, SW1Y 6ST (2 mins from Piccadilly Circus). Tickets: £22/£20 via 020 7287 2875 or www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/show/an-exquisite-harmony/
ENOCH ARDEN AT THE SWALEDALE FESTIVAL
It was a great privilege to perform Tennyson’s epic poem ENOCH ARDEN at Swaledale Festival in Richmond’s beautiful Georgian Theatre Royal, Britain’s oldest working theatre (dating from 1788) with my regular recital partner, the pianist Gamal Khamis this week. What a beautiful theatre and festival. We loved it!
A lot of fun was had creating this trailer with the good people of Silk Factory for hit series The Great on Lionsgate Plus, which just happens to land, by strange coincidence, on the weekend of the coronation. I was pleased to add the right royal voiceover. Huzzah!
We are delighted to announce that tickets are now on sale for the West End performance of An Exquisite Harmony at Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1Y 6ST on Sunday 16th July at 5pm. My piece about the lives, loves and music of Robert & Clara Schumann & Johannes Brahms is performed by me with the wonderful Fenella Norman and long-time recital partner the brilliant pianist Gamal Khamis.
www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/show/an-exquisite-harmony/
Audience comments from the premiere at St Mary's Perivale last November:
"absolutely brilliant… an amazing performance"
"an unforgettable afternoon"
"wonderfully life and love-affirming… will live long in the memory"
"an intriguing story with terrific piano playing"
"the script is brilliant... a magnificent triumph"
This was an interesting spot to work on for the new EGO Battery TV spot. The visuals and graphics from Refinery Marketing and Greenroom Films are really imaginative and their brief for the v/o was that they wanted something sophisticated and European sounding, rather than specifically UK or US, with IKEA and Audi branding as reference points. We were all really happy with the way it turned out. Kudos to director Michael Kearns…
Episode 12 of my studio poetry diary: Shakespeare’s “Wretched Strangers” Speech from the The Book of Sir Thomas More. Never have his words felt more contemporary:
“This is the strangers’ case; And this your mountainish inhumanity.”
New year, new demos I promised the team… and, well, here’s the first of them, only two and a half months late: the pick of some recent TV commercials.
I’m delighted to be teaming up with my friends the Bridge String Quartet again for a spring mini-tour. We first performed Haydn’s Seven Last Words in 2019 and have revived it each Easter since. Haydn originally wrote the work for the Good Friday service at the the Oratorio de la Santa Cueva in Cadiz in 1786 and we follow his original intention by interspersing its nine movements with spoken word readings, in our case classic and contemporary poetry by Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Philip Larkin, Mary Oliver and many others. Forty years later Beethoven had just recovered from serious illness when he wrote his immortal late quartet in A minor opus 132 and called the central slow movement “A holy song of thanksgiving to the deity from a convalescent recovering from illness”. We intersperse the movements with readings from his letters and diaries and poetry by TS Eliot, who cited the work as a particular inspiration for his own Four Quartets.
Tuesday 21st March, 7pm (London venue TBC) - Beethoven’s Holy Song of Thanks
§Thursday 30th March, 7pm Chester Road Baptist Church, Sutton Coldfield, B73 5HU - Haydn’s Seven Last Words
*Friday 31st March, 7pm Holy Trinity Church, Dilton Marsh, Wilts BA13 4DP - Haydn’s Seven Last Words
*Saturday 1st April, 7pm St Mary’s Church, Boyton, Wilts, BA12 0SS - Beethoven’s Holy Song of Thanks
*Tickets £15/£8 via boyton7lw@gmail.com
§Free with retiring collection
I was intrigued to be asked recently to voice a new trailer campaign for Screen X and delighted then to attend a Screen X screening last week of Ryan Coogler's brilliant Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I have to say it is an amazing experience for a movie of that scale and spectacle. Screen X is an immersive format using 270-degree additional screens on the side walls which effectively operate as your peripheral vision so that often you feel like you’re within the action or things are flying past you (I ducked more than once!). V gratifying too to see and hear our trailer played before the screening in its full Screen X glory (congrats to the creative team at CJ 4DPLEX). I highly recommend seeking out a Screen X cinema if there's one nearby.
It’s nice sometimes to voice trailers for lighter films as well as the big blockbusters. I must admit I was a bit resistant to the charms of Mrs Harris Goes to Paris as a theatre piece, but it makes a very diverting movie, to which I was pleased to lend my voice for the trailers. The brilliant Lesley Manville is on top form (as ever)...
Regular recital partner Gamal Khamis and I are delighted to be joined by actress Fenella Norman for An Exquisite Harmony, our latest livestreamed collaboration from St Mary's Perivale on Sun 6th November at 3pm. An Exquisite Harmony tells the moving and fascinating story of the relationship between Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, drawing on their letters and diaries and including piano repertoire by all three artists.
When Robert tried to commit suicide in 1854 and was subsequently committed to an asylum, his wife Clara, celebrated across Europe as a virtuoso concert pianist, was left at home with their six young children. The young Brahms, then aged only twenty, rushed to offer his support to Clara. What happened next has been the subject of speculation ever since. Clara was later to describe their relationship as “an exquisite harmony of souls”.
Available on CD: www.somm-recordings.com/recording/richard-strauss-narrator-piano/
And streaming platforms: listn.fm/enochardencastle/
A very exciting moment in the Kent household as the new CD arrives. It was launched a couple of weeks ago and has already been picking up some very nice reviews….
“A wholly exceptional and thoroughly engrossing achievement.” Robert Matthew-Walker, Musical Opinion
“A magnificent performance… rarely have I been so moved.” Christopher Axworthy, Music Commentary
"The performance by Gamal Khamis and Christopher Kent had me totally transfixed." Alexis Paterson, CEO Three Choirs Festival
So you’re on a road trip round the western US and the team at CBS Sports need an urgent recording session for a promo for the celebrated Coppa d’Italia in two days time and it just has to be your voice… What do you do? Well, the travel recording kit, a hotel room pillow fort and a spot of early morning Zoom are all it takes. Here’s the temp studio and the end result. Nice work everyone!
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