When one gets a telephone call asking whether one is interested in recording a children's song for a successful interactive educational website one immediately says yes, and jumps at the opportunity to share with the world a bit of music. Of course one says yes –it is the default answer of any actor being offered a job. "We'd like you to sing the elephant's part..." I see..., wondering what one has done to be worthy of such typecasting. After all, I I have never played an elephant before –in any medium. I have voiced numerous other creatures over the years though, including dragons, snakes, birds, mice and bats -and the very first professional role I played in the theatre was a dog. But an elephant -that's something new and dare I say daunting. What sort of a voice does an elephant have? There's not much research material about. Dumbo is not right for the huge and clumsy pachyderm that I am to play, and John Hurt in "The Elephant Man" is the wrong road to go down completely. Method acting is called for -at least some kind of method! I look at pictures of elephants –their eyes always seem so sad somehow, I wonder why. I make some tentative elephant sounds and startle people around me –probably not a good idea to do this on the street. Somehow end up with a Yorkshire-sounding singing voice –a bit dour, a bit slow, but full of gruff modulation. In the recording studio however, after a couple of run-throughs, it becomes clear that more vocal energy is needed. "Find the elephant within you" says the producer. I dig deep, become heavy (but elephants are graceful too) use my imagination and .... find that elephant! Somehow in this delightful process of discovery the voice of the elephant moves south, and the final result is an elephant that sounds like a cross between Londoner Ian Drury and my granny from Kent! After 20 or so takes the song is in the can, and I can step out of the elephant shoes, comfortable though they now have become, and return to the real world. I cannot help feelling grateful. A performer after me has to sing the part of fish –a tiny, little blue goldfish, but he had prepared the voice of a sea bass!
