It’s that last element of the three strands of voice work – parsing the text in the way that makes it sound rhythmical and comprehensible to an audience – that Godfrey says can be the most difficult. “You have to be very sensitive, finding a balance between advising the actor on delivery and stopping short of telling them how to say their lines. I often think, is it just how I would do it or is that really what’s being said?”
Godfrey mentions some lines of Beatrice’s she was working on with an actor recently for a production of Much Ado About Nothing, pointing out the wordplay of the words ‘cinque’ and ‘sink’. “I said: ‘I think you’re doing this already but just enjoy the fact that the word is being used in two different ways.’ And she said: ‘Oh, I hadn’t noticed that.’ Actors get very involved in characterisation, but actually it’s also about ideas. Particularly in Shakespeare.”