Hi-de-hi campers.

The British summer continues on its merry way with sporadic doses of sunshine but in the words of Mark Straker ‘however it dresses itself it still feels autumnal’. Well I am crossing fingers, legs and anything else that dangles (steady!) that we are in for a second dose of the golden stuff as I head back down to Cornwall next week. We all have our little dreams.

It has been a kooky week at VOX Towers and with lots of our in house voice team away on their hols it has been unnervingly quiet. Mr Stephen Critchlow soon changed all that though.

For the second week in a row we were lucky enough to catch another of our men strutting his finest in a suit. Critch who has played everything from Siamese fishermen to Macushi Indians didn’t disappoint as he graced us with his presence in the VoxBox, fitting us in between a hectic schedule of three auditions in one day.

He certainly looked the part and should you ever find yourself tackling the Tomorrow Never Dies computer game, check out the voice of James Bond. The name's Critchlow, Stephen Critchlow!

Some Critch trivia:

Likes: The A1 VOX Script Stork, Peter Purves, Beef Wellington, the word Moist.
Dislikes: Cold, any form of physical exercise, radishes, his old art teacher.

So there you have it guys!

One of our good pals Pete Gold came into A1 this week with none other than Mr Mitch Benn.

Mitch is a British musician of Liverpudlian/Scottish descent and a stand-up comedian known for his humorous songs performed on BBC radio.

He has played at several music festivals, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has also released 7 comedy song albums.

He features on BBC Radio 4 where he has been a regular contributor to The Now Show since 1999, and BBC Radio 2's It's Been a Bad Week. In 2004 he created his own aptly named series, Mitch Benn's Crimes Against Music on Radio 4, featuring Robin Ince and Alfie Joey; this has now run to three series.

Benn is famously remembered during the Now Show for getting annoyed at the fact that only a few people followed him on Twitter. Benn planned to make himself the "King of Twitter" by getting the show's 1.5 million listeners to follow his account and therefore have more followers than Stephen Fry, who he claimed was the current king.

Within a week of his announcement, the number of people following Benn more than tripled to just under 4,000. Benn performed a song expressing his anger that Coldplay beat him into having more followers than Fry first, making remarks that it was not the band themselves posting messages and that as the band has four members, the number of followers should have been divided by four. A case of splitting hairs me thinks Mitchy Mitch.

Benn also mentioned that some of his followers were worried that he was becoming too obsessed with Twitter. I’m saying naught people.

In the last episode of the series, Benn wrote what he claimed was his final Twitter song, which specially featured Fry telling Benn that if he renounced his claim as King of Twitter, Fry would make him "Viceroy of Facebook", which Benn did. Benn also referenced the passing of the one million mark on the site.

Together with his wife, Benn runs a Twitter account called "Things Greta Says", where they post any amusing quotes said by their four-year-old daughter Greta. The page currently has over 2,500 followers. So it seems the obsession lives on...through his own flesh and blood – spooky but true!

From Twitter to Twated as this week we were in the midst of a very nasty character who is probably best known for having his face smashed in with an iron!!!!

However, Alex Ferns, the Scottish actor widely remembered for his role in EastEnders as Trevor Morgan, “Britain’s most-hated Soap villain” and little Mo’s evil husband, is actually a very lovely man. The part scooped him Best Newcomer and Best Villain at the 2002 Soap Awards.

Alex cites a scene where, as Morgan, he had to push Little Mo's face into a Christmas dinner as his most stressful filming experience. Considering that Alex is a Buddhist in real life and killing a fly is considered a mortal sin, then I guess shoving someone’s face into a plateful of East End giblets would be extremely hard going!

Since his two year stint on the famous street, Alex has worked on, amongst other things, Joyeux Noel, an Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTAs nominated film for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Glasgow born actor has also dabbled in the theatre world, starring in Art, I.D, Agatha Christie’s Murder Mystery and The Little Shop of Horrors.


The 41-year-old admitted to a near fatal accident while cooking a prawn pasta dish in practice for his appearance on Marco’s Kitchen Burnout, with a near disastrous end that would have had the Eastenders explosive drum rolls ringing in his ears.

He said: "I always say that I'm not a competitive person but if I am being honest, I am. I'm the same with playing golf. I want to win.

"So when I found out for sure I was going to do this, I said to my wife Jennifer, I'm going to make this prawn pasta dish. Yeah, I'm going to be great on this show."

He continued: "She went up to have a bath, our sons Cameron, seven and Mackenzie, three, were asleep in bed, and I poured myself a glass of wine while I started defrosting prawns at the sink.

"I walked into the living room, forgetting I'd left the empty wok with oil on the gas.

"And the next thing I know, there are flames in the pan, smoke everywhere, the alarms are going off, and I knock over one of our expensive wine glasses and smash it. Setting the kitchen on fire... not a good start is it!". Erm....no Alex.

Alex, surprisingly, went on to win Marco's Kitchen Burnout competing alongside such raw undulated talent as Carol Smillie and Russell Grant! So some burning but not burnt out eh Mr Ferns. Well done you.

SOHO NEWS

THE SATURDAYS RIDE TO G-A-Y GIG ON HARLEY’S

The Saturdays bought sexy chaos to the streets of London last week as they roared into Old Compton Street on Harley Davidson motorbikes for the signing of their new single at G-A-Y bar.


Yes.... our near neighbours who are spitting distance from A1 saw fans queuing for hours to get their copies of the bands new single Missing You signed by the sassy quintet.

The signing was to pre-empt their album launch at the G-A-Y night at the Heaven nightclub promoting their third LP Headlines.

But those wiley foxes don’t fool me one iota as I have it under good authority that the gig they are all chomping to appear at is back in my home town of Chelmsford, Essex at premier venue The Chicago Rock Cafe....(12th September...tickets selling like hot cakes but I know a geezer that will do you a real good deal).

Us Essex folk laugh in the face of Harley Davidsons and you just wait as the girls get driven to the club in lowered Escort XR3i’s, then carried into the club on the shoulders of five burly wide boys, all wearing white trainers and saying ‘innit’. Utter Genius.

And on that bombshell I must leave you, but do check in next week and see who has been passing through, or by, the doors of VOX Towers. Now where did those five cheeky lads disappear to...........