Making yourself heard

Published Tuesday 31 August 2004 at 11:25

As an actress with a young daughter longing to go to stage school, I watched with interest a recent TV series about a well known and reputable stage educational school.

Frankly I was appalled at the quality of speech of both students and staff. Time was when you could tell a drama student by his or her well modulated voices. No one wants unnatural speech of course but surely an actor’s voice is the tool of his profession and should be of paramount importance at any stage school.

However, we were treated to careless, slovenly speech by the staff. As for the students, we got from them dropped h’s glottal stops, broad vowels, no final consonants, mumbled unclear speech, and the ubiquitous ‘like’ between each word. Audibility did not exist. Ex-students - many now celebrities - were just as bad.

I crossed this school right off my list. For £1,000 a term, I would expect voice production and clear speaking to be on the curriculum.

I have now enrolled my daughter at a much smaller school, whose students do just as well and get just as much work but which is not so committed to street culture that it takes away from its students the most important thing an actress or actor needs to learn namely how to be heard and understood.

Janette Delibes

Braemore Road

Hove

East Sussex