On Sunday 22nd January, The Riverhouse Barn in Walton hosted Martin Jarvis OBE and his production team as they recorded two episodes of ‘Just William’ for BBC Radio 4. The first was, ‘Violet Elizabeth Runs Away’, and the second was, ‘The Christmas Truce’, both of which had never been recorded with a live audience before. The small theatre was packed full of anticipating viewers, the majority of whom were in search of reminiscence of their childhoods, seeing as ‘Just William’ was first published by Richmal Crompton in 1921.

Martin Jarvis, the voice actor for ‘Just William-Live!’ has experienced several aspects of television and film, having appeared in the likes of ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Murder, She Wrote’, and ‘Law and Order: UK’, before moving onto predominantly radio and voiceover work. He was awarded an OBE in 2000.

At 4pm Martin theatrically rushed onto the stage to give a debrief about the hour and a half ahead. He started by saying that due to the fact that he had to play four separate young children in one episode, he would probably have to take a short break every now and then, which certainly was the case; although this by no means took away the charm of his performance. He then introduced his wife, Rosalind Ayres, and Martin Mitchell, who were both part of the production team.

This was an insightful experience for myself as I had never been part of a radio recording before and I found it particularly fascinating how Martin took regular breaks and made witty jokes while we waited for him to prepare himself for the next section. Also, after Martin finished each episode he checked with his team to see if anything needed to be re-recorded, and on both occasions there was; either due to a blow on the microphone or a noise from the audience or passing traffic.

Be sure to listen to both recordings on BBC radio 4 at some point throughout 2017!

Roisin McEvoy - St George's Weybridge