The Rodfather

One of the best audiobooks I’ve ever listened to is Limmy’s autobiography, Surprisingly Down to Earth, and Very Funny. Limmy is a Glaswegian comedian and he reads this book in his own accent and with his own vernacular. For me, it adds so much to the authenticity of the read and I couldn’t imagine anyone else voicing it; after all, it’s his life story. I envied whoever recorded it and wished I could get the chance to record something similar. In August 2022, I got my wish.

Irish journalist and author, Paul Howard (Ross O’Carroll-Kelly/Aldrin Adams) co-wrote this biography of an Irish football player/football manager and I was asked to record it with the football legend himself. Anyone who knows me knows that I know nothing about sport, so I had to do some research to find out more about this man.

As it turns out, he is a Dublin northsider, like myself. Dublin is bisected by the River Liffey and most of us who live north of that river tend to have strong accents and perhaps our own continually-evolving vernacular. Another fact I discovered is that he is not an avid reader. Add to this that the book was co-written, meaning it was penned from many hours of recorded interviews and then reworded and reformatted to create a grammatically-correct and coherent story, i.e., it was no longer in precisely his own voice. And if that wasn’t enough, voicing audiobooks is very demanding. Limmy’s book was great — sure — but he’s a performer and actor.

So how did this footballing legend do? Brilliantly, I thought. First off, he has the gift of the gab: when he’s chatting to you, his anecdotes are captivating; they have a beginning, middle and end, and his punch lines always land. In order to facilitate his natural patter, it was decided that he could tweak the text slightly so as to return it to his vocabulary. Audiobook reads are extremely challenging as it is: 6 to 7 hour days of reading and concentrating; sitting still so there’s no extraneous noise; trying to stay with the ever-changing emotion of each story… it’s exhausting even for seasoned actors. And it’s not for everyone. But for a perfectionist who is out of his comfort zone, isn’t a performer and doesn’t read, I felt he rose to the challenge and did an incredible job.

The Rodfather was written by Paul Howard and Roddy Collins. It was commissioned by Lottie Chesterman at Penguin Random House UK and was launched on the 17th of November 2022. There’s a link to a sample in the comments.