Between the Ears – a programme for BBC radio 3

I was delighted to be part of this fantastic programme for BBC Radio 3. I’ve known the producer Jon Holmes for about 300 years so it was great to work with him once more.

As the BBC website says, the show is…

A sonic trip through our on-hold, tick-box, automated world, which turns bureaucracy into art and music.

With audio collaged from public transport announcements, customer service phone lines, chat bots and computer error codes, this is an aural journey through the multitude of depersonalised and depersonalising messages that accost us every day. Hearing from members of the public across Britain who vent their tales of admin woe, this programme gives voice to the frustration we all feel.

We also hear the ‘content creators’ put their side of the story – from on-hold messaging designer Nikki Cooper to Emma Clarke, the voice of Mind the Gap. Cultural analysts Peter Fleming and Jamie Woodcock throw light on the causes of contemporary digital bureaucracy, and Helen Dewdney suggests ways to flex our consumer rights.

Finally, with the help of composer Neil Luck, we transform these grey snowdrifts into an original musical composition that sublimates dross into art. Through auditory alchemy, the negativity we are all subject to is transmuted into something of value that lifts us out of the everyday, reclaiming the human from digitised modern life.

I appear as a disembodied voice (don’t I always) talking about how I voiced the ‘Mind the Gap’ material for London Underground’s tube trains.

Listen here!

Want to hear more voiceovers? Click here!