One of my 2014 discoveries is BBC Radio Audio Dramas. I enjoy listening to them, they make me company at work or during the boring domestic cleaning. Right now I have five podcasts in my ipod plus “I, Claudius” in Audible format. I am an organised person (while I write this I see clearly as if she was in front of me my mother rolling her eyes) therefore when I have realised that I was losing control of the voices, I arrived to the conclusion that I had to make something to solve the situation. I was not sure if a certain voice appeared in other of my podcasts, and my confusion grew with every new podcast as most of names did not rang a bell at all. Therefore I have made today, at work (I had nothing to do, bloody crisis) a very professional excel file with the name of the actors and actresses, their role and the play, underlining also my favourite voices. There is another column that I have not published, “seen in”, as a friendly reminder that, exception made for the obviously very famous as Derek Jacobi or John Hurt, if I was not able to connect some names with faces was all to blame to my poor memory. These are some faces of my favourite male voices of the plays. Of course, in alphabetical order (thanks to excel “order as” option). And yes, I hear you screaming “you did not know Samuel Barnett before?”. Mea culpa.
Photo by Laurie Asprey
Picture RSC
My actors/actresses (I know, I have not published any picture of some of the very good and talented actresses who work in these plays, shame on me) list consists on eighty-two different names of which I “new” (or had to but I had forgotten) just fourteen, which makes me reflect on how hard show business world is. Behind a handful of well-known fan-assaulted celebrities there is a legion of talented workers of the scenes who remain unknown to the big public. To all of them I just can say “thank you” followed by an “I’m sorry for not having noticed you before”.
Wormwood Scrubs 