This Much Is True

Another of my classics was the Cadbury’s Caramel Bunny ads, which ran in the 1980s and 1990s. I don’t know where that voice came from, but to some extent I was channelling Sexy Sonia, to which I added an Oxfordshire spin and a hint of creamy West Country sumptuousness for good measure; it seemed to suit the voluptuous bunny’s sensually languorous demeanour.

It was a lovely experience taking part in all these big advertising campaigns, and some people never wanted anything else. But I did. I wanted to be doing more with my acting career.

Bryan Drew was my agent for everything, both for voices and for what I would term ‘proper’ acting work, on stage or film. I was getting the voice jobs all right, thanks to Wendy Noel. But then Wendy retired and all I seemed to be getting was voice work. I really wanted to act, to be a proper actress playing all sorts of parts and I thought, ‘Well, maybe if I suck Bryan off, I’ll get better work.’ I went to his office one day and did exactly that. I thought of it then as a ‘career incentive’. I remember saying, ‘How do you think it’s all shaping up, Bryan? Because I don’t seem to be doing much except voice-overs.’ It must have been me that offered, because I don’t think I would have been top of Bryan’s list for mouth sex. He was a nice man, even if he was a bit lazy. Maybe the conversation stalled and it seemed a good moment. I said, ‘Would you like me to suck you off?’ And he must have said yes, because I did. But it didn’t bring me any more work. Put that one down to experience.

Soon after, I left Bryan Drew; it left a nasty taste, I suppose.

To Dub or Not to Dub

The BBC provided the perfect training and diving board into the world of voice-overs. My voice, thanks to all those years of elocution and radio acting, is my not so secret weapon, but even I was surprised at the lengthy list (stretching across several pages!) of all the parts I’ve played. The Cadbury’s Caramel Bunny and PG Tips’ chimp are just the tip of the iceberg, as my voice is there embedded in literally hundreds of TV series and films, many of which I’ve now forgotten. Dubbed voices are never credited, and this anonymous artistry and skill are known only to those of us who stood in darkened studios years ago and tried to recreate, as best we could, the passion and flair of the original performance.

My favourite adventures in audio all started with ‘Sexy Sonia’, of course, after which I decided that, really, I preferred a script with words, rather than panting and moaning. After the dubbed version of a Japanese series called The Water Margin (I played all the female roles except Princess Titicaca, who was my old Cambridge friend Elizabeth Proud) became a surprise hit in 1976, I was booked again to perform most of the supporting female characters in another dubbed Japanese action TV series, Monkey, in 1978. We were a voice cast of about seven: there was Burt Kwouk; along with Andrew Sachs, of Manuel in Fawlty Towers fame; David Collings; Maria Warburg; Peter Woodthorpe; and Gareth Armstrong. When I went to Australia, that was one of the things that most impressed the technical crews that I worked with: the camera and lighting and all the gaffers and so on. They would say, ‘You did Monkey! Bloody hell! I used to watch that every day when I came back from school. That was my favourite programme!’ They were all just thrilled with it, but the tragedy is that I don’t remember it at all.

When you’re dubbing, you don’t watch the whole thing; only the scene that you are voicing. You go into a darkened room with a huge screen, like a cinema, and you stand there, maybe five or six of you behind your own individual mike. They play the loop, and we look at it, though I always prefer to listen to the guide track, and then you record your lines. I’m always so intent on getting the wipe, and starting exactly on cue when the wipe goes across, that I don’t really have time to think about the film itself. I just do my job, and then we go to the next scene.

I don’t really approve of dubbing. I believe in subtitles. I never go to a dubbed film: they always sound dead to me, because they don’t have the acoustic of the original action. Although they do try to reproduce it, and a great deal of time is spent doing that, in my opinion it never works. I don’t like animation either, and I would never go and watch a cartoon movie in the cinema. I want the real thing. So, because I wasn’t interested in Monkey or the story, I took no account of it, and that’s why I don’t remember it.

Perhaps foolishly, I’ve never seen the films I’ve voiced. I prefer not to. It’s noticeable that I am often asked to be an animal; I’ve been a snake, an owl and a glow-worm, but maybe that’s because I’ve made many animated films for children. I’ve also been various kinds of monsters: some requiring masses of make-up; in others, my own face was deemed frightful enough.