Get to know me
Yam Righ’?
I was born in Sutton Coldfield, and spent the first 5 years of my life in Walsall, in the West Midlands. At 5 my family and I moved to Lichfield, Staffordshire which though sadly free of Liches, was the start of my adventures in accents. In Walsall, my brother and I spoke with thick Black Country accents, and as we moved, we started to adopt our mums more RP accent. After 3 years, in Lichfield, the family decided that we had had enough of the rain and grey skies that England provided, and we moved to Australia…
‘Straya Mate
When you think of the Deep South of America, you think of Texas, Queensland is the Texas of Australia. There are no guns, but plenty of wannabe cowboys, an accent so broad that at 8 years old, I had no idea what anyone was saying. I quickly learnt to understand the accent but the expressions, for the most part, escaped me. I remember my 4th grade teacher calling me stupid because I didn’t know what “This Arvo” meant. It means This Afternoon…
Now the question that many people I knew asked, was “Why Kingaroy?” Well apart from being 8 when we moved and having no choice because, well I was 8… Dad worked in the construction industry, and there was a housing boom in the area when we moved.
My brother and I did all of our schooling in Kingaroy, and thanks to Dad’s business, we came into contact with 2 retired English Professors. These two people became my best friends, and changed my life for the better like no one else had or really has since. They introduced us to all sorts classic literature, plays, and silly songs like “The Owl and the Pussy Cat.” We used to read books together after school, sitting around the table, each reading a page aloud until the books were finished, and discussing the themes and history behind the texts. With plays we each took on the roles of multiple characters and performed private plays for the 4 of us. It was the most fun I had ever had, and when I think about it, they sparked the acting bug in me. A bug that I told no one about, not even myself.
I went to university to study Bio-Medical Science, something that I didn’t really want to study, but I felt like I had to because of pressures I put on myself, but this website really isn’t the place to go into that… It is a way for you to get to know me I suppose… Though I didn’t want to study Bio-Med, I came into contact with some amazing people in the science department… “The Nerds.”
The Nerd
At University, I joined the Board Games Club, and after 2 weeks I was asked if I wanted to play “Dungeons and Dragons.” We did a couple of 1 shots (single session quests), and I was hooked. I finally had a creative outlet, and some great friends. I then played a plethora of other table top games like “Call of Cthulhu,” “Shadowrun,” and “Legend of the 5 Rings,” which became a year long campaign that really got me into improv, and sparked a real love of TTRPG’s. That game, and a fantastic Game Master really made my University experience great.
It was not to last though… I completed 1 year at university, and because of some external matters and probably a dislike of the degree I inflicted upon myself, I didn’t have amazing grades. I had a long discussion with my parents, and we decided that I just needed a break from everything in Aus, and being very lucky in my family, I got to take what was supposed to be a “Gap Year” in France…
Hon Hon Hon Oui Oui Baguette
I came to Montpellier in the South of France to experience the world, another culture, and to learn Français. I enrolled in a French school, and every day, 5 days a week for around 8 months I took French classes. In these classes, not only did I learn French, but I also met a bunch of wonderful people from all over the world.
At the end of my first year, I had decided that I wasn’t going back to Australia, and though it would be nice not to have to pay for food and rent, I wouldn’t last a day in Prison, and I needed to find a job. Montpellier thankfully has a huge Ex-Pat community, and I came into contact with a couple who owned a Coffee Shop, which at the time was the only place to get Australian quality coffee in the city, maybe even the region. The couple decided to open another Coffee Shop/Restaurant in the city, and thanks to some great timing, they offered me a job. This was fantastic, and those two are probably the reason I have been in France all of this time. While working in this restaurant was great, what was even better about it was the flexibility. I finally had the time to attempt something that I had dreamed of doing since I was reading books and plays around the table with my English tutors…
The Essential Reads
While on a walk a friend asked me something along the lines of “What would you do if you could do anything?” For the first time in my life, I admitted to myself what I really wanted to do…Voice Act. I didn’t know where it really came from, but as soon as I said it, I knew it to be true. This friend told me some very important words: “Just try it. If you like it, fantastic, if not then you will know that it isn’t for you. You don’t want to get to 60 years old and be thinking, “What if?”.”
So I tried, I narrated my first audiobook, and though I didn’t have a proper microphone, or proper editing software, and had a “home studio” that consisted of my wardrobe and clothes, I didn’t just like it. I loved it. Ever since, in every free moment that I had, I was narrating audiobooks and auditioning roles on all sorts of websites. I created “The Essential Reads” where I share these audiobooks with students all over the globe, and thanks to this show, at the start of 2023, I was able to become a fulltime voice actor.