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A FREE Professional Voice CD for Actors and Drama Students

Direction and Advice by a BBC Radio Drama Producer of 20 Years Experience

For Your Submission to the BBC and Other Employers
Shaun directing students in A Midsummer's Night's Dream

To qualify for this offer you will need to audition by sending Shaun MacLoughlin a CD of your reading of your choice of a character (or two) from:

Shaun directing students in plays that they have written with his guidance

Each winner will record a chapter / character from these books, which are to be made into a collection of downloads and CDs.  The rights will be retained by Shaun.

Recording both your own Voice Showreel CDs and the Character should take one full day.  However Shaun will be happy to advise the winners beforehand on choice of material and afterwards he will assemble and burn your master CD.


Your Master CD will be supplied FREE
and also
Your Voice Demo will be uploaded to this Website for Employers to Sample.

Why is Shaun doing this?

He would like to share his love of audio drama with drama students and he also wishes to help promote the charity that is creating these profound and fascinating Talking with ,,,, books, by creating CDs and downloads to accompany them.

Where will you record?

Shaun has a recording booth in his home in Bristol, UK.

However for travel and living expenses and use of studio or recording booth, he would be happy to travel

For more information please fill in your name and email



Any questions, such as where to send your CD, etc?

Some Advice to Students.

For your submitted CDs it will be sufficient to read the excerpts from the dialogues on the webpages.  It might be a good idea to have a fellow student read in Peter's dialogue.  (Shaun will do this in the eventual recording.)

As there are many Americans, authentic American accents will be useful.  However:

'The spirit of the character is more
important than mere mimicry'

Please note: Maria Callas, Amelia Earhart, Florence Nightingale, George Orwell, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Tate and Oscar Wilce are already cast.

For your Voice CD for the BBC and other employers, Shaun Macloughlin's book Writing for Radio (see below) has a chapter on acting, containing a list of what the BBC advise should be on your CD.

You should also find the following useful.  The workshops are for actors as well as writers and directors.

Audio Drama and Documentary exercises.

  1. Radio is not a captive medium.  Enchant and enthral your listener within the first two minutes or she will switch off.
    The Disagreeable Oyster by Giles Cooper
  2. Listen to as many Bad Plays as Possible.  It could be fun.  Learn what not to do.
    This Gun in My Right Hand is Loaded; Scene 1 by Timothy West
  3. Microphone Technique.  The ALOUD voice and the THOUGHT voice.
    Hard of Hearing by Colin Haydn Evans
  4. Different Narrators.  Be a Monkey or a Parrot.
    Song of the Forest by Tina Pepler and
    Lobby Talk by Juliet Ace and Vic Aiken
  5. How Many Characters?
    This Gun in My Right Hand is Loaded; Scene 2 by Timothy West
  6. The Differences between Radio and Other Media
    Babylon is Fallen by John Fletcher
  7. Music Can Capture Emotions and Images
    Symphonic Variations by Bruce Stewart
    and Hot Rubber or Death on the Motorway by John Fletcher
  8. The Elements of Radio - Language, Sound Effects, Music and Silence.
    The Hole in the Top of the World by Fay Weldon
  9. Having Fun  Creating Spot Effects.  This page was inspired by Andrew Lawrence, an excellent BBC Studio Manager
  10. Your First Radio Play  Writing for Children  -  and Angels.
    I Luv U Jimmy Spud by Lee Hall
  11. Total Listening on BBC Radio 3
    Easy Traumas by Tina Pepler
  12. Stucturing a Radio Play.
    The World Walk by Jonathan Smith
  13. Censorship and Script Layout.
    Winston in Europe by Peter Tinniswood
  14. Dramatization.
    Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding, dramatized by John Scotney
  15. Building a Documentary 1.
    The Field of the Star by Shaun and Seamus MacLoughlin
  16. Building a Documentary 2.
    Australia Episode 13: Lucky Country? by Mike Walker
  17. Comedy.
    Crisp and Even Brightly by Alick Rowe
  18. Selling to the BBC.
    The Flower Room dramatized by Shaun MacLoughlin from Leaving Mother Lake by Christine Mathieu and Yang Erche Namu

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