Narrator Interview – Tony Pearce-Smith
Tony has been narrating books for Calibre for over 10 years. As a keen thespian, Tony was pleased to bring his acting skills to his volunteer role and finds the challenge of bringing the characters in books to life exciting. Here tells us about the challenges he has faced and what keeps him going:
“I first started reading texts for people with sight loss over 25 years ago but found reading newspapers and other factual material pretty dull. When I found out that Calibre were looking for narrators for novels, it gave me a great opportunity to combine the skills I had learned as an actor in various dramatic societies.
“I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of getting the characters right. I read through the book and make notes about each character first. I remember reading Kenilworth by Walter Scott – that one was a particular challenge as there were 60 or 70 different characters in the book!
“In an ideal world, I would prefer to do my recordings in the morning but as I am fitting it around my work commitments, this isn’t always possible. So quite often I do it late in the evening. I have my equipment set up in the shed and I’ll go down there and do an hour or two of recording.
“More often than not the cat will come with me and then my biggest challenge is to stop him/her from walking all over the equipment! Keeping consistency in the accents I need to use is always tricky and I’m always very conscious of the need to ensure that the recordings are at the same level so I check these regularly throughout the session to spot if my voice goes quieter.
“The thought that I’m making a contribution to a good cause along with the fact that I really enjoy doing it is what has motivated me to keep narrating. I’ve had some positive feedback from members but I would love to hear more from them – and even from authors and other professionals about the work I do.
“Calibre offers a great variety of different audio books for members from the classics and more modern literature to non-fiction and poetry. As a keen reader myself, it is very rewarding to be able to play a part in bringing a book to life for Calibre members whether it’s a children’s book, poetry or a novel.
“With 30 books under my belt now, I can safely say that I greatly enjoy narrating a wide range of different books and I would definitely encourage others who enjoy analysing and developing voices for characters to consider becoming a volunteer narrator. It’s been a source of great enjoyment for me.”
20 July 2022