Extract One:

Speaker 1: Now Sean, as a teenager you did various bits of TV work before being signed up to a major soap at 16. What’s that like?

Speaker 2: I was 16 in London for the first time and earning money, but still going up. I’d intended to go to drama school, but they kept extending my contract because my character was so popular so that didn’t happen. I was even offered a recording contract at one point so I can’t sing

Speaker 1: So, it wasn’t so great.

Speaker 2: I feel much more relaxed about it now looking back but at the time I was just thinking this wasn’t the way my career was meant to be going so I quit. I was 18 and it wasn’t what I wanted in life. People said I was making a big mistake that I sink without a trace…

Speaker 1: But you didn’t?

Speaker 2: No, I still get a bit pigeonholed as the pretty soap star and nine times out of ten when I get sense scripts I can guess which part they want me to play so I go for that 10th one every time I actually I’ve been pretty lucky getting quite a bit of film and theatre work so I can’t complain.

Extract Two:

Speaker 1: When I first began testing tape years ago. I was fascinated by how much you can tell move voice. You know tension, passion and certainty sitting late at night cutting and tidying up recording hearing the ‘amms’ and ‘errs’ and breath and laughs and moments of emotional hesitations with my headphones. I feel quite intimate with the person I was working on. Did you find that Jane?

Speaker 2: Absolutely. And that means you have a responsibility to ensure first of all that the edited version makes sense but also that it sounds like the person. So sometimes you put back a few of the ‘amms’ and ‘errs’ and pauses.

Speaker 1: That’s right because let’s face it on the radio voices really matter

Speaker 2: When I started out people had really fixed ideas about what made a good radio voice and I didn’t have one also I was told and I’ve never make a radio performer. That’s why I went into editing.

Speaker 1: Just goes to show how things have moved on doesn’t it?

Speaker 2: I suppose it does.

Extract Three:

Speaker 1: I mean you were brought up in Africa so going back. Did you find it just changed?

Speaker 2: In many ways, not at all. There is still plenty of empty space that it’s possible to get lost in.  Areas where mobile phones don’t work and there’s no internet access. We live in a world where anyone can find you anytime and say I need your 500 words by the 30th. In Africa, you can be inaccessible in an invasive world

Speaker 1: Sounds like the sort of thing kids do on a gap, yeah?

Speaker 2: It’s been tougher than that, especially going alone that’s I did. It is something not to be taken on lightly and it’s certainly wasn’t a holiday

Speaker 1: Right. We are a lot about development and there’s all the charity work going on so I thought you might have noticed some results of all that

Speaker 2: I think a lot of that hype is actually counterproductive unless Africans themselves are involved in the projects. They don’t do any good.

Small-scale projects into work things with local involvement do not offer a big international profile but I didn’t go looking for development all projects that wasn’t my brief.

Extract One

F: Hi, Daniel – how are things? Have you applied for college yet?

M: Well, I can’t decide which one to go for. Lots of colleges have sent me their glossy brochures … and I see they now go on about how environmentally friendly they are; in fact they’ve got a star rating system for this one ..

F: Mmm … they e trying to attract as much interest as possible, though I’m not sure that would have much impact on my choice .. ltimately the course has to be the right one, though I can see they need to compete …

M: Well, yes, but if I was torn between two courses the new rating could decide it. It’s good they’re thinking about these issues … and the marketing people are certainly shouting about it!

F: It’s getting like the commercial sector – those companies who sponsor a charity for example, trying to persuade consumers that just by buying their products, they’re doing their bit for charity and can ignore other causes. I don’t know if it increases sales, but the cynic in me reckons many companies just want to appear softer in the public eye, so they make a lot of noise about their charitable credentials.

Extract Two

F: Are you still going to the gym, Frank?
M: Yes, but not as often as | should be.

F: That’s the problem, isn’t it? I’ve heard that the dropout rate among gym members is very high even in those really expensive, luxury health centres. Anyway, gyms aren’t the answer. I’m sure the real key is to build exercise into your daily routine, by doing something simple like walking to the mall or taking the stairs rather than the elevator – or doing sport. And another thing, I people tend to think that a sixty-minute workout entitles them to
laze around for the rest of the day or eat a lot and then undo all I the good they might’ve done, but people who exercise little and often don’t fall into the same trap.

M: That’s all very well, Mary, but what about the people who don’t give up on the gym and who actually feel the benefit, and quite enjoy the comradeship? Each to his own, you know. If you’d just give it another shot, you might find it suited you too.

Extract Three

M: What did you study at university, Alicia?

F: Horticulture – plants and things. I was based at a regional one, but I also spent time studying in the capital.

M: Seems a strange place to go if you want to grow things – the middle of a huge city.

F: Mmm, that’s what my fellow students said! I mean, I know it wasn’tideal. It’s a harsh climate – winters are bitterly cold, and the summer’s sweltering, with little rain. But folks in the city are just determined to grow stuff – on rooftops, balconies, wherever. They’ll just garden anywhere they can. It was a reminder of the strong spirit of gardeners.

M: Come to think of it, I do remember noticing the way some of the trees were looked after there. Instead of bare bits of ground around urban trees, they seem to take great pride in filling the earth around them with flowers.

F: And all that’s done by the residents themselves. It’s as if every tree s to be celebrated.

M: I wouldn’t go that far. Not all parts of the city are like that.

Extract One:

Speaker 1: Now Sean, as a teenager you did various bits of TV work before being signed up to a major soap at 16. What’s that like?

Speaker 2: I was 16 in London for the first time and earning money, but still going up. I’d intended to go to drama school, but they kept extending my contract because my character was so popular so that didn’t happen. I was even offered a recording contract at one point so I can’t sing

Speaker 1: So, it wasn’t so great.

Speaker 2: I feel much more relaxed about it now looking back but at the time I was just thinking this wasn’t the way my career was meant to be going so I quit. I was 18 and it wasn’t what I wanted in life. People said I was making a big mistake that I sink without a trace…

Speaker 1: But you didn’t?

Speaker 2: No, I still get a bit pigeonholed as the pretty soap star and nine times out of ten when I get sense scripts I can guess which part they want me to play so I go for that 10th one every time I actually I’ve been pretty lucky getting quite a bit of film and theatre work so I can’t complain.

Extract Two:

Speaker 1: When I first began testing tape years ago. I was fascinated by how much you can tell move voice. You know tension, passion and certainty sitting late at night cutting and tidying up recording hearing the ‘amms’ and ‘errs’ and breath and laughs and moments of emotional hesitations with my headphones. I feel quite intimate with the person I was working on. Did you find that Jane?

Speaker 2: Absolutely. And that means you have a responsibility to ensure first of all that the edited version makes sense but also that it sounds like the person. So sometimes you put back a few of the ‘amms’ and ‘errs’ and pauses.

Speaker 1: That’s right because let’s face it on the radio voices really matter

Speaker 2: When I started out people had really fixed ideas about what made a good radio voice and I didn’t have one also I was told and I’ve never make a radio performer. That’s why I went into editing.

Speaker 1: Just goes to show how things have moved on doesn’t it?

Speaker 2: I suppose it does.

Extract Three:

Speaker 1: I mean you were brought up in Africa so going back. Did you find it just changed?

Speaker 2: In many ways, not at all. There is still plenty of empty space that it’s possible to get lost in.  Areas where mobile phones don’t work and there’s no internet access. We live in a world where anyone can find you anytime and say I need your 500 words by the 30th. In Africa, you can be inaccessible in an invasive world

Speaker 1: Sounds like the sort of thing kids do on a gap, yeah?

Speaker 2: It’s been tougher than that, especially going alone that’s I did. It is something not to be taken on lightly and it’s certainly wasn’t a holiday

Speaker 1: Right. We are a lot about development and there’s all the charity work going on so I thought you might have noticed some results of all that

Speaker 2: I think a lot of that hype is actually counterproductive unless Africans themselves are involved in the projects. They don’t do any good.

Small-scale projects into work things with local involvement do not offer a big international profile but I didn’t go looking for development all projects that wasn’t my brief.