Talking of media voices, how David Tennant must delight in doing his deadpan voiceovers for BBC TV’s brilliant spoof W1A, successor to the equally fine Twenty Twelve.

My current favourite line (here, from 3.58) is

… the Department of Culture, Media, And Also For Some Reason Sport…

which cracks me up every time he says it, even in the more subtle version

Department of Culture, Media, And Also Sport.

He slips in gems like

Reaction on social media has been almost universally divided.

The choice of theme tune is perfect too.

Further to my paltry comments on filming techniques, I did the voiceovers for my first two films (DVDs with my books Ritual and music of north China) myself, much to the amusement of my friends—who, used to my imp–p-pediment, couldn’t imagine a budget vast enough to allow for all the editing. In the end I recorded both voiceovers over a single morning, doing only a few retakes, and it didn’t take the editors too long.

Still, for my portrait film about Li Manshan, it was much more personal for him to do the voiceovers himself, with English subtitles. After lengthy discussion of the script, we eventually recorded them deep in the night at his home—Chinese villages can be noisy places, with dogs barking, donkeys braying, and tractors making those tractor noises…