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Announcers - what announcers?

(January 2010)

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BE
Ben Founding member
Steve Williams posted:
Simon Bates announced for Southern for a bit - in his autobiography he says how impressed he was with a veteran announcer who, at closedown, took off his glasses to wish the viewers goodnight, only to find out that the glasses had no lenses in anyway.


That'll be Christopher Robbie, he wore them whenever he read a news bulletin.
MA
Markymark
Ben posted:
Steve Williams posted:
Simon Bates announced for Southern for a bit - in his autobiography he says how impressed he was with a veteran announcer who, at closedown, took off his glasses to wish the viewers goodnight, only to find out that the glasses had no lenses in anyway.


That'll be Christopher Robbie, he wore them whenever he read a news bulletin.


Ha, yes, you're right. He was excellent, Southern's best CA I'm my opinion.
JJ
jjne
Col posted:

TYNE TEES
(Helen Aitken), Colin Bower, (Tracey Crawford), (Neil Didsbury), Liz Fox, (Kerrie Gosney), (Pete Haslam), Jim Lloyd, Lesley Manners, (Maggie Mash), Ray Moore, Jonathan Morrell, Sally Morton, John Mundy, Valerie Oldfield, (Nick Oliver), Valerie Pitts, (Bob Preedy), Clem Shaw, (Andy Siddell), Susan Spencer, Stephen Whitlock
( ) - via GMG North shared continuity at Yorkshire


As mentioned Andy Siddell did a few stints at Newcastle in 1995. He worked out of vision, mostly at weekends, but was definitely in the Newcastle studio (static rather than animated short ident, the background noise you get with a larger booth and fader clunks gave the game away).
MI
philMID
I like Gina Mellotte, her voice is very authoritive and pleasant to listen to
CO
Colm
Just discovered a rare in-vision appearance by a Yorkshire Television announcer in 1980... in Coronation Street of all places.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0l4vpwgaac

From 5.17 onwards, the doctor treating Elsie Tanner for the effects of smoke inhalation is Paul Lally.
MA
Matt_1979
It is interesting to hear that a TV announcer was also an actor. I wonder if Paul Lally appeared in any other series?
MA
Markymark
Matt_1979 posted:
It is interesting to hear that a TV announcer was also an actor.


Quite a few were, Philip Elsmore, Christopher Robbie, Ian Stirling. Why are you surprised, acting and announcing require similar skills ?
BE
Ben Founding member
Talking of Phillip Elsmore he appears a couple of minutes into this video, admittedly playing the role of an announcer but still worth seeing.

Jenifer Clulow of TVS/TSW was an actress, she appeared in the Cointreau adverts at the same time and was in an episode of Keeping Up Appearances.
JJ
jjne
Bill Steel, Charles Foster and Neville Wanless are actors as well. I'm sure there are plenty of others.
NW
nwtv2003
jjne posted:
Bill Steel, Charles Foster and Neville Wanless are actors as well. I'm sure there are plenty of others.


Charles Foster of all people was in Hollyoaks a couple of years ago playing a Judge. I think he appeared in the short lived Channel 4 drama called The Courtroom. Saying that I think his wife is in Emmerdale.
MA
Markymark
jjne posted:
Bill Steel, Charles Foster and Neville Wanless are actors as well. I'm sure there are plenty of others.


Probably most that started their announcing careers from the 50s and 60s were ?
JJ
jjne
Most likely. In fact isn't it the case that almost all of them started out as actors in the early days due to announcing being a fairly new thing? I'm thinking of the likes of Mike Neville here, who started out his days on TV as an actor.

Fact is, if you expand the list to include broadcasters in general there are so many journalists, news readers, radio DJs and presenters that also announce that I'd say it's probably the majority rather than the minority. A great many of these will have been formally trained in either acting or journalism; as you say the skills involved translate well from one job to the next.

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