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Front Row: Director John Madden, Pultizer Prize-winning author Richard Ford, Voice coach Barbara Berkery, Edward Kemp, head of RADA

Director John Madden, Pultizer Prize-winning author Richard Ford, Voice coach Barbara Berkery, Edward Kemp, head of RADA

10/05/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Director John Madden, Pultizer Prize-winning author Richard Ford, Voice coach Barbara Berkery, Edward Kemp, head of RADA

Film director John Madden, the diction controversy, Pultizer-winning author Richard Ford.

Kirsty Lang interviews film director John Madden, Pultizer Prize-winning author Richard Ford and discusses diction with voice coach Barbara Berkery and Edward Kemp, head of RADA.

We speak to director John Madden about his new political thriller Miss Sloane, where Jessica Chastain stars as a ruthless lobbyist taking on the might of the gun lobby. The film was released in the USA two days after Trump was elected and John discusses the effect this had on both on the American box office takings and on how the he now views the film.

It is a controversy that has caused thousands of complaints to the BBC and debate in the House of Lords. Last week even saw Judi Dench became involved when she criticised young performers about it. Actors 'mumbling' their dialogue, especially on TV drama, has become a common complaint of modern audiences. The director of RADA Edward Kemp and voice coach Barbara Berkery comes in to tell us why actors are struggling to be heard by viewers - and what can be done to improve their diction. 

Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Ford discusses his first non-fiction book, Between Them, a two-part memoir of his parents, Edna and Parker Ford, who lived an itinerant life during the depression until their son's birth in 1944.

(Photo: Richard Ford, Jackson, Mississipi, 1947. Credit: Richard Ford).

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