Yours turns up the volume on mumbling…
As complaints about inaudible television programmes continue, we talk to a leading celebrity voice coach about the issue and her tricks for keeping our own voices in tip-top condition
If you sometimes struggle to understand actors on TV, you’re not alone. Over the last few years there have been a catalogue of shows, including Jamaica Inn and most recently SS-GB, which have attracted complaints from viewers who simply can’t hear what’s going on. Of course many modern actors don’t speak with the same clipped, strong voices the thespians of yesteryear were expected to project to their audiences. And while we don’t necessarily expect today’s actors to talk with perfect, Brief Encounter-style elocution, surely it’s not too much to ask to expect audible, understandable voices on screen? Dame Judi Dench says the problem is that drama schools aren’t teaching actors to project their voices anymore, which was an essential part of training in years gone by. Speaking on Desert Island Discs in 2015 she said: “In a lot of theatres now you get a mic. We never did. You just learn that the person sitting in the back seat of the upper circle is the person you play to.” Carrie Grant, a celebrity vocal coach to the stars, says: “I was watching Silent Witness recently and thought, what did they say? I had to keep pausing and rewinding.” Part of the problem, she says, is background noise. “There’s more of this on TV than there used to be and it’s hard to separate this from what someone’s saying.. In the Sixties and Seventies our actors came from the stage so they had to project their voice to the back of the circle, whereas now screen actors do everything much smaller.” Carrie is an expert on voice projection. “Our voice is one of the most important ways we communicate so learning how to look after it and use it to its best is crucial,” she says. ”It’s just a matter of making small changes to the way you think about your voice to make it sound clearer. “If you look at the width of your neck and then look at the width of your waist, it’s clear the muscles in your waist will support you more than those in your throat, so you want to engage your tummy muscles to give a stronger, clearer voice, while protecting your throat. “To do this, put your thumb on your tummy button and your hand on your lower abdomen underneath. As you breathe in, those muscles should relax and you should feel your stomach balloon against your