Present ensemble audio performance work using a wide range of appropriate vocal skills, demonstrating versatility.
The Far Side Of The Moore was written by Sean Grundy and it tells the life story of Sir Patrick Moore. Moore, at the beginning of the script, is simply a guy in love with the stars and sky 'at night.' He is just desperate for work that will get his research and findings out there, to other astrologists. His first shot at this, a book about flying saucers, wasn't quite how he'd expected his career to take off. But with this, he was offered a short television series on his own knowledge. And ever since his first screening in 1957, 'The Sky At Night' has been on broadcast ever since.
This is a wonderful story. It really lets you into the life of Mr Moore, both his personal life and is public life. You get an insight into his relationship with his mother, we meet a few of his lovers and also his worse enemy, Dr Henry King.
In groups, it was our assignment to put on a performance of this script. When being casted, I was gutted to have been put into this group, as to me, the other script (Atching Tan) seemed a whole lot more interesting, but looking back on the process, I can disagree. My group consisted of:
Luke as Patrick Moore
Milo as Paul Johnstone
Matt as Dr Henry King/ News reporter
Nathan as Percy Wilkins/ Studio FM
Frankie as Eileen Wilkins
Brandon as Arthur C. Clarke/ George Adamski
Myself as Gertrude Moore/ Henry Kings secutary
Joe as Leonard Miall
...and Phoebe, Jake and Sophie as stand-ins for characters such as Lorna, the BAA President and Announcer.
The read through was, I found boring, and I was dreading having to do this piece because at first it seemed so scientific and the story didn't seem very thrilling. But read throughs can often be like tihs because no sense of character or story is being put into the lines that are being read aloud. At first Gertrude wasn't really a character. I simply spoke her in my voice, hoping that my 'ok' articulation would work. This worked for a while. The others did something similar until it was really pushed forward that our articulation was the biggest thing of the piece -
1950's BBC- For example, The Goon Show, really shows off how well they spoke back then.The articulation is perfect, making the dialogue immaculately clear to understand and so therefore making it easy to hear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnhcmhXjN0 -
so we knew that just our ordinary voices were no good. Luke, has a natural talent for putting on a booming, well-articulated mans voice so when working alongside him I found it really difficult to find any way to get up to his vocal level. So the beginning of this all, I found really hard. I wanted to make Gertrude just as strong a character as Patrick had become.
I think overtime with Gertrude's articulation, I managed to reach the same articulation level as Luke, which made Patrick and Gertrude's mother and son relationship that bit more believable. And again, looking back on it all, I don't think I really got to Luke's level, but that wasn't the point anyways, but I know that I managed to have his confidence and his manner of speaking and change it up into creating Gertrude's voice which I felt was very 50's and very relevant.
I was thrilled with the character Gertrude, the only elderly character that I have played was a comical and stereotypical grandma with a weary and croaky voice. So Gertrude would be a nice change from this. Gertrude plays Patrick Moore's mother, and she comes across very motherly which you start to see, Patrick gets annoyed with. Her husband, Patrick's father was taken by German bombings, and although was a very sad time for them both, this is something Gertrude tells us, "so sad... and then your father going...I know it broke your heart," it's something I think Patrick is a bit sour towards. He mentions that he was 'the son of a hero, and his only son had his head stuck in books'. Patrick saw himself as a let down to his father, and was quite sure that his father couldn't work out Patrick's interest in the stars. He had a closer bond with his mother, 'mother and I are close', and she believed in him, 'it was mother that brought me my first astrology book.' She believed in his love for the stars and she clearly helped him through his career, which is evident throughout the script. Patrick was very much a 'mummies boy', or so what I can tell, it was Gertrude who answered all the various BBC phonecalls and despite Patrick muttering across the room how he should 'take fathers gun now, and put me out of my misery' and 'you may have to shoot me twice' but if it weren't for her forcing the phone in his face, Moore wouldn't have got the flying saucers book which was his step into televison that followed closely after. Moore was quite an odd character, and in life he was too. He wore a monocle for starters, 'goh an monocle, how ancient is he?" and he had conversations with Lorna...Well, in the script they were dream-like conversations, which perhaps in life meant that he was so truly in love with her that even after she died he recalled past conversations with her, reminiscing more like. But as bizzarre as Patrick was portrayed, his mother was no more normal. A few of her lines run on the lines of eccentric, which could well have been one of the words Patrick (in real life) would've described his mum, "wonderful, the cats are also excited" But she was supportive, 'your writing is super' she was reassuring 'does anybody actually read the BAA journal?' 'You would've hated it, I read in the Daily Telegraph one must wear ten layers of make-up just to be seen!'.
Moving onto the more research side to my assignment, I began looking into the radio show 'Cabin Pressure.' Cabin Pressure is a radio sitcom as a handful of aeroplane crew take animals, humans and all sorts of others across the oceans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDOblDaMm2s Limerick is all about one character, Arthur guessing the object inside the cargo of the plane. The three other characters are clearly a lot more intelligent than Arthur, whom asks some ridiculous questions...but it makes it all the more comedic.
The storyline is quick and funny and also very easy to listen to. The dialogue is clear despite the fact when sometimes they speak quickly. Moore speaks incredibly quickly in our play. Arthur's mother, in Cabin Pressure, speaks well, she sounds very posh, due to the elongation of her words and the clarity of her talk. For example when she says 'no' its drawn out but said in a high pitch tone which makes her sound well-to-do. I know that I don't want to change Gertrude's voice completely, but I know that I will need to make her sound posh and that can be done with the use of articulation.
So my research started off again into researching articulation, and the ways in which I can improve my articulation. First off, is to speak slowly. That way every correct way in pronunciation can leave your mouth correctly because you aren't rushing through your lines. Speaking slower also gives off a more intelligent voice, which is something Gertrude could easily house. During these endless rehearsals, I have been reminded to slow down in order to perfect my articulation, and again looking back on the project, I think this is something that highly improved my voice in the final piece. To avoid verbal pauses in speech, which is something that can lower this status that I have perhaps already created for Gertrude. Although I don't think this is dialogued anywhere for Gertrude, she does have a few lines that begin with an 'ooh' which I tried to make into a more excited sound rather than an unintelligent sentence filler. But mainly, it's practise on the text itself that has helped me work on improving my well-spoken character. I have the advantage that I am well spoken already, I am often being told I sound posh so Gertrude was very much an extended version of my own voice. A really key tip that I came across during my research was along the lines of 'read for the ears, not the eyes' they seemed to think the pyscological effect on you as the actor massively improves your voice. So it means that if you are constantly in the mind set that this dialogue is simply just for the ears, then you start to push all your facial expressions and movement into your voice. So for example, Gertrude's most 'famous' line was 'East Grinstead, 13753' I started off pretending to pick up a phone to say this line but by our performance I was able to reel this line off without a second thought (it was a way of introducing yourself, but over the phone, so the number like your postcode) and so you could hear that it was my 'telephone' voice- everyone has a telephone voice so I hope you get what I mean. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/communication/do-you-have-a-radio-voice?page=1
During practise, I made one section of dialogue my point of focus, and this was because I rushed it and stumbled through it every time, when really it needed to be delivered slowly and with thought going into it:
"With his forced visual images and vague generalties, author Patrick Moore is flirting with science. In suns, myths and man this amateur astronomer sows the seeds of irrationality...not very glowing."
As you can see, it has a fair few long words, and there not words that I would struggle in reading, but as a whole I tend to jumble them up making the entire piece unclear. This was my bit of text that I would result back to before each radio rehearsal to get me back into the swing of the immaculate articulation. And when doing this, I made sure to really over use the shapes that my mouth made when saying this, so each word was delivered with as much clarity as possible. Another trusty pre-rehearsal method for me was tongue twisters, which is something I really tried to keep to every rehearsal (and I can say I did stick to every day!) I varied the tongue twisters to save me from getting bored, but a favourite would be how much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood. This is one that I always stumble over, but for this I would put on a really posh fake voice, it sounded and looked hilarious but it really got me into the voice of Gertrude and helped me to get into the pattern of articulation and also gave me a method into how I wanted to create Gertrude's voice.
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| Image 1, Patsy Rodenburg. |
Someone I based my vocal research upon so happens to be the voice expert that is Patsy Rodenburg. As you would expect, from a vocal expert, her voice is perfect. Her articulation and diction clear, and she simply speaks well. In this short clip, I focussed on her voice, instead of the vocal information she is actually giving. She speaks in a high tone, which shows off her enthusiasm for the subject matter. 'About thirty years ago when I started to teach' every 't' sound in this sentence, that starts off the clip, can be heard. They aren't harsh 't' sounds, like some can be, but they are pronounced clear enough to tune into them. She talks slowly, which like I said earlier really does make her sound intelligent (not that she wasn't anyways) But her speech doesn't seem slow, because the pauses aren't over exaggerated, they are merely there for her audience to process what she is saying before she continues; which means that she nearly always will have the full attention of her audience. There is the such rarity that she uses verbal pauses, but we can always expect that off anyone purely because its more about how the brain is working before we can speak. But it adds no real effect to how Rodenburg portrays herself with her voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub27yeXKUTY (Try and listen to this without watching, it makes focussing on the voice a lot easier.)As a small second character, I read in for Dr Henry King's secretary. I based my voice for these few lines as secretary on Mary from Downton Abbey (Michelle Dockery) She speaks in the highest of RP, it's not completely overexaggerised but clearly noticeable. She speaks very similarly to perhaps the likes of Rodenburg, but I've given the secretary a much younger age. Again, she speaks slowly and quite high pitched and to me her voice sounds open, very much how a secretary might sound, having to open to hearing whose on the other end of the phone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6cdVwNq70c
With the secretarys lines, I tried to put on a high voice and really, really overexaggerised the poshness of how she spoke. 'I'll just see if he's in...who should I say is calling?' Again, I put on a 'telephone' voice which is just a more heightened way of speech and really try to sound posh, almost like my intention was to sound stuck up.
In conclusion, I have loved radio. I really didn't think I would when we first started it because I didn't get on with the script when we first read it. I was quite apprehensive when I was first casted as Gertrude because I was worried that Sally would want her to be an completely over played stereotype of a little old granny. The casting was well done, we all had good parts that challenged us just slightly in ways that we wouldn't volunteer to challenge ourselves in. The story line proved me wrong completely however, I think I have fallen in love with the characters, I feel sorry for Patrick and his imaginary chats with Lorna and the lonliness of Dr Henry King that I felt through his closed off personality. I felt a true sense of proudness (sounds silly, I know) when Moore says he got the tv slot for the last time. My voice, I think has grown confidence. I was up for trying out a silly secretary voice and also motivated to really improve Gertrudes voice as the process proceeded (with my tongue twisters etc)... All in all, I have really loved radio, it has taught me an awful lot about my voice as well as voice in general; and the powers it holds. I wasn't ready for radio to be such an enjoyable experience as I think we all were just ready for physical acting when we were introduced to the fact we were going to be doing radio work.
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