Charlotte Green giggles too
March 28th, 2008 by rooI wouldn’t normally post such a short snippet to Speechification, but the 8:00 am news slot on Radio 4’s Today programme had an unmissable moment which can’t fail to put a smile on your face.
Charlotte Green, in her wonderful newsreaders voice, reads a story about the first recording of a human voice (singing ‘Au Clair de la Lune’) and we are treated to a sample. The Guardian is carrying the news that her subsequent laughter may have been triggered by someone quietly telling her that the recording sounded like a “bee buzzing in a bottle”.
The corpsing fit adds an unexpected twist to the next piece, Abby Mann’s obituary. By the end of that, she sounds like she’s crying with laughter. James Naughtie valiantly picks up with the next story, but it’s so infectious that his voice nearly cracks a couple of times too.
(MP3)
Thanks to everyone who let me know about this classic little piece of Radio 4 history. I think it’s something I’ll keep coming back to when I need cheering up.
March 28th, 2008 at 11:45 am
The Guardian are reporting complaints because the giggling spilled over into the obituary for Abby Mann, a man who went onto create Kojak the lovable, lollipop-licking detective. I’m sure he would have enjoyed the irony of a recording of the first human voice causing such amusement and distraction on the BBC’s premier serious news show.
March 28th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Yes, I like to think Abby Mann would have been pleased too.
March 28th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Awesome. We laughed like drains. Did you notice that the clip has actually been excluded from the show’s nicely-organised Listen Again function?
March 28th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I see that Thomas Edwards, from Liverpool, (a listener quoted on the Telegraph website) was outraged by Charlotte’s gaffe, even going as far as to accuse her of ‘laughing at the Jewish holocaust’. Living proof that there are some genuinely humourless people in the world.
The woman deserves our sympathy - there can be nothing more embarrassing for a professional newsreader of her calibre than to ‘lose it’ live on air. But it was a great moment.
March 28th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Jon: couldn’t agree more. The quote was
Urgh. I firmly expect to see a roundup of annoying and infuriating listener responses on the wonderful ’spEak You’re bRanes’ website (ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com). In fact, I’ve just emailed the creator with the link.
Also, who says the holocaust is exempt from comedy? Didn’t ‘Life is Beautiful‘ win an Oscar?
March 28th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Nothing lovelier than laughter: involuntary, uncontrollable. The idea that Charlotte could have suppressed it is just ridiculous.
March 29th, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] Charlotte Green giggles too The first ever recorded voice comes to haunt the cool, sophisticated composure of the Radio 4 Newsreader… (tags: humour radio bbc) No Comments Leave a Commenttrackback addressThere was an error with your comment, please try again. name (required)email (will not be published) (required)url [...]
March 29th, 2008 at 11:52 am
There’s also a glorious clip of her struggling after a report about the appointment of Jack Tuat (pronounced twat) to the Papua New Guinea government, which she describes in a Guardian piece - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/mar/03/tvandradio.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:44 am
I heard this on Sunday night’s ‘Pick of the Week’ - so Radio 4 can’t have felt too bad about her giggling. I thought it was great to hear someone crack a little on Radio 4’s usually proper-than-proper airwaves - a very human moment.
April 4th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
[...] Charlotte Green giggles. Speechification caught the wonderful moment where the goddess of Radio 4 lost it big time on Today. Do not click through to the Guardian article though as it has a photo of her and while it’s not a bad photo it did ruin my mental image. One which, frankly, no-one could ever live up to. [...]
April 7th, 2008 at 11:06 am
[...] Charlotte Green made me laugh. [...]