My Voice

Let's see if this works...

Hey guys -

Some of you are new, some of you are here from Mailchimp and honestly, I have no idea what I am doing but it is what the cool kids are doing and we are here now!

So let’s call this one a practise to help me get into the swing of it. I am currently backstage at an Awards ‘do’ that I am hosting. Wonderful showgirls are bringing me to the stage from behind their feathers a la Girls Aloud at The Brits circa 2009. I am also trying to change a hotel reservation from my name to my parents name for a trip to Malta that I booked but am not attending - is there a handy link to click? No! When I ring, does it take me to a Starbucks? Yes!

Anyway, I have made a promise that over the next 12 months, longer if it goes well, this will be the new place where I come on, we catch up in a place that doesn’t feel like it needs constant punchlines and we will talk about things. I am doing loads at the minute in my personal life - trying to learn to box, do my garden and therapy. J’adore.

This week though, I appeared on the ITV News at 6pm, not as a criminal, but just me to promote my Soho Theatre run in London at the end of April. Oh, whilst I have you - please get your tickets here. I wasn’t allowed to say the name of my show, which I thought was hilare. Tart, Tart, Tart. It really was a dream come true though because here’s a truth bomb. I never wanted to be a comedian, I wanted to be a News Reader.

Back in the day, once I graduated with a degree in French and Linguistics, which btw I think is quite high brow. I wanted to do an MA (I’m a sucker for debt) in Broadcast Journalism. I went and did the interview and I thought it had gone great and then they told me that my voice wasn’t right for the news. That’s it.

Too Northern?

Too Gay?

I never found out. Now this was 15 years ago, and I thought maybe times had changed but my friend messaged me because her son, who is currently at uni, was told that if he didn’t tone down his accent for his presentation, they would have to mark him down. So he turned the Manc up! Go on Joe!

So accent bias is my new obsession. It’s funny how we are raised to not judge a book by it’s cover, but not an audio book by it’s reader, right?

So that’s how I ended up here, backstage at an Awards do where I have to make a load of people, who just want to get drunk on the company card (which I respect) laugh! I sometimes really begrudge that I never found out what it would be like to be a real life Lois Lane but sometimes I wonder if they set me on a more fabulous path… I don’t always have this glass half full vibes when I am in a car park hiding from hail in Hull!

Cool right?

Okay, please let me know what sort of stuff you want here!!

And thank you so much for sticking with me!

Big love

Stephen x