12.06.05
Parliamo Hogwarts: S Baxter Inspired HP Voices
“How Stanley Baxter inspired voices in Harry Potter tapes”Stephen Fry has revealed how he turned to the Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter to help him record the Harry Potter books.
The actor and author is the voice behind scores of characters in the tapes of the hit series.
In an interview with JK Rowling, Harry Potter’s creator, he revealed that the secret of tackling the books’ heroines lay in the popular Scots comic.
He said: “I always loved the Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter.
“I noticed from an early age - I was about ten - that when he did a woman he would deepen his voice, unlike trying to do a falsetto. For a lot of women that works very well.”
In the interview with Fry, to be broadcast next week on BBC Radio 4, Rowling revealed that she has another children’s book up her sleeve.
The writer, who lives in Edinburgh, said that she has an idea for a new novel after she has written the seventh and final episode of the boy wizard’s adventures.
But Rowling, whose first novel was turned down by several publishers before it hit the shelves, added that she might use a pseudonym for the next attempt.
She said: “There is another book that’s sort of mouldering in a cupboard that I quite like, which is for slightly younger children. There are other things I’d like to write. But I’ll need to find a good pseudonym and do it all secretly.”
The author, whose books have earned her an estimated fortune of around £500 million, will soon begin writing the final instalment of the hit series.
The film adaptations have also been a box-office hit, while the latest, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was the first to be given a 12A rating for its scary content.
Rowling said: “We need to feel fear and we need to confront fear in a controlled environment, and that’s a very important part of growing up. The child that has been protected from the Dementors in fiction, I would argue, is much less likely to fall prey to them later in life in reality.”
JK Rowling and Stephen Fry will be in conversation on BBC Radio 4 at 9am on Saturday, 10 December.
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/arts.cfm?id=2343282005