This Much Is True

In those happy days of voicing commercials, Soho was the hub of the capital’s advertising and film world. The top sound studios were mainly based there. The sound recording revolution was started by Stefan Sargent and his business partner, Robert Parker. They were the pioneers in commercial radio advertising. TV advertising had been going for ages, of course. Now I was a regular at Molinare where they trained many of the top engineers. Soon other studios came into the expanding voice industry. There was the John Wood Studios and Angell Sound, run by Nick Angell. It was in Angell Sound I first met French and Saunders. I listened to their work, improvising a radio commercial and knew, beyond doubt, that they would become stars. Their timing was superb and they knew each other so well, their work was instinctive.

At the John Wood Studios in Broadwick Street, I became friends with John himself. He taught me a great deal about how to make commercials believable, how to save seconds when needed. He had built technically superb studios but more than anything, he created a family atmosphere. All the engineers were lovely blokes, while glamorous Maureen Lyons at the front desk knew how to make clients feel special.

John reminded me of the first session I ever did with him: I was running through the script in my little sound booth and he heard a big bang. ‘What was that noise, Miriam?’ he asked. ‘Sorry, John,’ I said. ‘I just put my tits on the table.’ Well… it broke the ice, if not the table!

Often, there would be several other actors in the voice-over booth; sadly, the days of large casts in voice-overs have gone now. Many came via the BBC, because we knew how to use a microphone.

When bookings started to increase, and my friends were as busy as I was, a group of us clubbed together to rent a little flat in Broadwick Street. Sharing the flat were me, Tony Jackson, Ray Brooks (who was mainly a television actor); Martin Jarvis; John Baddeley; David Tate (best known for his work in the original radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy); Patrick Allen, who was probably the most well known; and Geoffrey Matthews, another gifted pal from radio.

On any one day, there was a lot of time hanging about in between jobs, and having the flat meant instead of having to go backwards and forwards from Soho to home, we could wait there. It was Tony Jackson’s idea. He was a working-class boy from Birmingham, with black hair, black eyes, massive sexual energy and he was a terrific voice-over artist with intelligence and artistic flair. As one of the major male-voice success stories in the early seventies, Tony was making about £50,000 per annum; that was a lot of money then. If he hadn’t taken to drink, he would have been a big star but, sadly, died too young.

It was a small world and we were much envied by other actors because everybody knew that we were making money and having fun. We weren’t all in the flat at the same time, of course, because sometimes someone would have a job in theatre, or film, but we chipped in and paid our share regardless. I suspect some of the men may have used the bedroom for an afternoon fuck. It was tremendous fun to be with my fellow actors and so convenient; I used to have a swim at Marshall Street Baths, and then did my shopping at Berwick Street Market. There were lots of little restaurants and places to go. One of my favourite shops was Andrew Edmunds in Lexington Street. Every time I got a good job, I bought a nineteenth-century political cartoon from Andrew. Rowlandson, Gillray and Heath were my favourites. The spur to purchase came from the size of the ladies depicted. They are all remarkably fat, stout, portly, roly-poly, substantial, heavyset, weighty, blubbery — you get the picture? Well, so did I. It isn’t the politics that grabs me, it’s the fecundity. They are the classical equivalent of the seaside postcard, breasts and appetites barely contained, the full panoply of Georgian excess in glorious colour.

We were getting so many bookings that Wendy Noel made us have little pagers, and she would page us the details of the next job. We sat and chatted in the flat waiting for our pagers to buzz; every buzz meant money. We would have tea, coffee and pastries from Cranks, the famous vegetarian restaurant next door to the swimming pool. We’d bring in all the food and laugh and wait for the money to roll in. It was an amazing time.