Radio Play (Classical) Professional work review

Sherlock Holmes The Engineers Thumb

This is one of the Sherlock Holmes episodes. Watson wakes up and has to tend to a patient who's thumb had been cut off. When he treats the wound, the patient tells him what happened, mentioning a suspicious man visited his office called Colonel Lysander Stark, offering the engineer a lucrative pay for a job that seemed simple.

I will be looking at the vocal work for Dr Watson.

Character

Watson: Watson is the famous partner of Sherlock Holmes the British private detective. he is intelligent and inquisitive when it comes to usual cases, and will pass such cases onto his friend Holmes.

Age: based on the vocals in this drama I would say his age is Mid-Late 40s

Watson is both the narrator and a character within this story, he introduces the tale before we see it play out how it happened.

Vocals

Watson is addressing the listeners at the beggining he uses intonation, and makes changes in his tone, keeping the listener engaged in what he is saying as it adds more levels to his voice making him sound more interesting to the listeners.

'I will tell you about the case of the engineers thumb' - starting off on a lower tone, his tone rises on the will you and slowly again from 'about the case' his tone is composed and strong, he sounds as though he remembers the story personally, which suits as he has, the rise in pitch keeps readers interested as does the use of levels and intonations, which they use within it.

His voice sounds mature and there is no confusion in the difference in age between him and the patient he attends to at the beginning who's thumb was cut off.

When informed by the man for the first time that his thumb was cut off, you can hear the shock in his voice instantly, it's believable and doesn't sound forced, this is good as it means the listeners are more likely to believe in the characters.

'oh hold on a moment' - you can hear the clear, shock and slight uneasiness to his voice, it sound as though he is still trying to comprehend what happened and he needs to take moment to process what occurred.

'an attack' when the engineer mentioned it was an attack, there was element of curiosity and interest when he repeated the fact, this is shown as he goes on to say he will talk to his friend Sherlock Holmes.