The Wonder

I have so much respect for casting. It’s a tricky process. And audiobooks are no exception. First, you must read the book and allow a suitable voice to emerge. Then you have to trawl through voice agencies to source a human being gifted with that voice. They need to have not just the voice, but also the ability to act out hundreds of pages of story involving lots of characters. Furthermore, they’ll often be required to effect elusive accents. That in itself can be a minefield.

Accents can give us a sense of place or a sense of where a character is from. But if they’re inaccurate, they can be a distraction for the listener. And how much do you push an accent? Will it be strong so that a non-native is taxed trying to follow the dialogue, or will it be very mild so as to give just a sense of background?

In September 2022, I was asked to record an audiobook set in the Irish midlands in the 1850s. The main character is English and required an RP (Received Pronunciation) voice, i.e., a well-spoken, neutral English accent. However, almost all the other characters are Irish. So, do you cast an English actor or an Irish actor? And this is where the casting crew outdid themselves.

The actor chosen for this project was born in England, raised in Ireland and then spent several more years living in both countries. With a life on both sides of the pond, she was able to nail those Irish accents and do an excellent RP. We still had extensive discussions about the accents, but when she played me the phone demo she had recorded by way of an audition for the role, I was in total awe and couldn’t wait to start recording.

I am nerding out a little here, but to hear her read the first few paragraphs was mesmerising, like I had front-row seats to an A-list cast in a spell-binding play. See, it’s one thing to read well and with an authentic accent, but it’s another thing to read as though the thoughts are coming from your own head: navigating the shifting emotions as though you’re skipping along the stepping stones of a turbulent river. To hear this in action, live, in front of me, was nothing short of spellbinding; I was witnessing a master at work.

The book’s story itself is utterly compelling and I was genuinely on the edge of my seat right through to the end. For me, the VO took that perfectly-crafted manuscript and elevated it to the audiobook dimension. She pored over every line and every character and did this gripping tale the justice it deserves.

The Wonder was written by Emma Donoghue and published by Picador. The audiobook was commissioned by Elspeth McPherson at Strathmore Publishing in London and it was voiced by the insanely-talented Tara Egan-Langley. It was recorded and produced by Paul Fegan at bitsixteen studios in September and October 2022. The post-production was by Emma Mills and the audiobook was launched on the 10th of November 2022.