Why Accents Are Biography, Not Party Tricks An accent is not a hat you put on a character five minutes before the audition. At least, it should not be. It is where someone has lived, who they grew up around, what they want to hide, who they want to impress and how safe they feel in the room. More than RP RP is part of my toolkit, but it is not the whole toolkit. I am British Indian, grew up in and around the West Midlands, and have lived in the West Country for over a decade.

Building a Voiceover Studio in a Garden Shed There are glamorous ways to enter the voiceover industry. Mine involved sheep’s wool, second-hand blankets and a shed. The house was not going to cut it I started with a microphone and optimism. Then I met the acoustic reality of an open-plan house with echoey walls, appliances that apparently fancied a supporting role, and enough household noise to populate a small sitcom. Problem: echo. Solution: shed The answer was to build a re

Why I Chose Games, Animation and Audio Drama Commercial voiceover is wonderful. Documentary is satisfying. Continuity has its own delicious rhythm. But character work is the place where my brain starts behaving like someone has plugged fairy lights in. The pull of character Games, animation and audio drama ask for more than a clean read. They ask who the person is, what they want, what they are hiding, what just happened before the line and what might happen if they fail. Tha

What Agents Told Me About Breaking Into Performance Capture At an industry summit I asked a blunt question because there is only so long one can smile vaguely at networking events before needing actual information. The question I asked directly What do you want to see from someone trying to move into performance capture? The answer was immediate: an acting showreel. Not just a voice reel Not just enthusiasm. Not just a pleasant recording setup. Not just “I once did drama and

Starting again in your 50s is less “new chapter” and more “how many passwords does one career need?” There is fear, of course. Fear of looking foolish. Fear of discovering you are too late. Fear of wanting something so much that the wanting itself becomes embarrassing. Fear is not always a warning Fear doesn’t always mean “this is unsafe.” Fear often says “this matters”. Voice acting, especially character work for games, animation and audio drama, sits firmly in the second ca

I did not begin with a five-year plan, a fully sound-treated studio and an industry contact book. I began, rather inconveniently, on a dancefloor. About eighteen months ago, someone said to me, “You should be on Radio 2.” I was flattered, laughed, and filed it under Lovely Things People Say After a Wiggle and a Giggle. Then a voiceover training post appeared in a WhatsApp group and I had one of those visceral, inconvenient, impossible-to-ignore moments: OMG. That is what I wa