Chipping at David - Village Magazine

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WAS having dinner with Peggy Lee. I

had just interviewed her in the bed-

room of her home in Hollywood and

she had kindly invited me to stay, she

resting on the bed after a recent fall and me

sitting beside her in a chair, quietly thrilled.

A butler brought in tortillas and scotch. As

one of the great song stylists of the twentieth

century, Peggy was a sophisticated woman

with an impressive knowledge of the arts

and a large library of books lining the walls

of her bedroom. She had been reading about

Michelangelo and when the conversation

turned to his most famous sculpture, she

made a telling observation: “Imagine see-

ing David in that block of marble”.

It was a phrase which I borrowed some

years later when I began training and

coaching prospective radio presenters and

producers. Rather than impose a style, the

better approach is to chip away at the bits

that aren’t David and allow him to come alive,

so that an authentic personality emerges,

relieved of the irritants and bad habits that

compel the audience to move the dial.

It was akin to

the technique I

encountered in

the mid-Sixties,

when I was being

trained as a conti-

nuity announcer

for Radio Éireann,

based then in the

old studios in

the GPO. Denis

Meehan was in

charge of the

Announcers

Section, aided by

his deputy Brigid

Kilfeather and his

Chief Announcer,

Terry Wogan,

who spent his

time subtly con-

tradicting what

Brigid had said

the previous evening.

Terry was much inﬂuenced by Denis, a

witty and kindly man, who encouraged us

to sound like ourselves, rather than try to

sound like ‘the man on the wireless’. On the

training course, he picked us up on pronun-

ciation errors, in Irish and English, and gave

such sage advice as, for example, when con-

fronted with an unfamiliar name and unsure

which syllables to emphasise, equal stress on

all syllables gets you out of trouble.

Denis favoured an informal style, seri-

ous on occasion, but natural in approach.

His philosophy encapsulated the essence of

public service broadcasting – to make what

is good, popular and what is popular, good.

He was adamant that the national station

should show respect for the audience, by

treating them as intelligent. “They may be

ignorant”, he said, “that is, lacking certain

information, but they are not stupid”. It’s a

mantra that has underpinned my broadcast-

ing: ‘Assume they are bright’.

Denis reserved much of his spleen for

Speech Tunes. These are bad habits that

infest the airwaves even now, on radio and

television. They characteristically entail

delivering a script in a sing-song manner

that bears no resemblance to the meaning

of the words. It includes pauses in. The mid-

dle of the sentence. And ends in a downward

descent to the full stop at. The end of the sen-

tence. A Speech Tune rings false, is tiring to

listen to and can be cured only if the speaker

concentrates on the meaning of the text.

Denis also reminded us that, even though

there are thousands listening, they are lis-

tening in ones.

The days of communities clustered

around a radio set are long gone, as are

entire families watching the same TV set,

so an intimate style by the presenter works

best.

Eventually, there is an audition. A Radio

Éireann executive told me of his way of decid-

ing on one presenter, rather than another:

“Nice people come across as nice people”, he

said, “and bastards come across as bastards

– and there’s damn all you can do about it”.

There is truth in that.

So, it is possible that, having chipped

away the bits of marble that aren’t David, we

are left with a ﬁgure that is less than beau-

tiful. You know the kind of broadcasters I

mean- the smug ones, the dull ones, the

ones that regard programmes as an oppor-

tunity to show oﬀ their knowledge, the ones

who refuse to adopt even the most basic pro-

nunciation guidelines, (‘Nooz’, anyone?).

Training and coaching can release what

was inherently already there. But it can’t

teach talent.

It may teach you to read music, but it

can’t teach you to be Peggy Lee.

Chipping at David

Some radio techniques can’t be taught… though some can. By Brendan Balfe

brendan balFe MEDIA

Speech

Tunes entail

delivering

a script in

a sing-song

manner that

bears no

resemblance

to the

meaning of

the words

“

Balfe, as

host of

music

quiz show

‘Off the

Beat’ with

team

captains,

Frank Hall

and Hugh

Leonard