SOUND DEFECTS
STUDIO, ROGER interviewing NICHOLAS:
ROGER Good evening and welcome to SFX, the show with lots of fans unable to distinguish F from E. My guest tonight is Nicholas Fairy, the sound effects boffin behind Radio 4's best broadcasts and 'The Archers'. Hello, Nicholas.
NICHOLAS Good evening.
ROGER Our first question, how would you create the sound of a cat falling off a table?
NICHOLAS Ah that's a most complex and technical process. First I find a cat - borrow one, steal a stray, in an emergency even purchase one of the feline family - then place it carefully upon a table in the studio, give it a little shove, and as it plummets to the floor and thuds thereon, it creates the sound required.
ROGER Right... I thought you'd just drop a sheaf of papers or something.
NICHOLAS Just not the same old bean, not the same.
ROGER Okay. Next, what about a horse trotting along a street?
NICHOLS Now this is a more complicated affair due to the sad scarcity of the equine family. In these cases I locate such a beast - try a farm or a stable, on one occasion I even obtained a carcass from the local butcher and performed the kiss of life thereon. I then attach it to a rein and pace up and down the studio leading the old thing along, thus creating the sound required.
ROGER Why not just bang two coconut shells together, make a clippety-cloppety kind of noise?
NICHOLS (laughs) With all due respect young man, I'd look a right nincompoop wouldn't I, bashing away at bits of nuts like a Hawaiian maniac?
ROGER It's - radio. No one will see.
Pause.
NICHOLAS Oh yes.
ROGER So finally how would you - oh God, how'd ya do an eclipse?
NCHOLAS Well this is the trickiest fellow of all as these phenomena only occur once in a blue moon - that's just a little joke. But I would wait - patiently, professionally - until such an event did indeed occur, and...
ROGER Jeez, you could just have somebody say, 'Look there's an eclipse.'
NICHOLAS I'm awfully sorry but that smacks of lazy writing to me. People don't just say, 'Look there's a man eating an omelette', 'Look there's someone climbing over a gate', 'Look there's a mongoose painting a tree...'
ROGER All right, you could have some dramatic music.
NICHOLAS I think you'll find, Einstein, eclipses are relatively silent shenanigans. It's been scientifically proven that no such music arises on the appearance of...
ROGER Right that's it.
Roger hits Nicholas and then stomps out and slams the door.
NICHOLAS Jolly good, how did you do that?