REPRESENTATION UPSON EDWARDS - Key Persons
Alison is a freelance acting coach. She trained at ITV's Television Workshop and worked as a professional actress on TV for ten years, working for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. She then went on to teach full time at the Television Workshop, training young talent in acting for TV and screen, with many students going on to critical acclaim in the industry. She continues her association with the BAFTA award winning TV Workshop as Executive Artistic Director across Manchester and Nottingham.
Areas of Expertise: Voice, Classical Text, Acting
Barbara Houseman has worked with actors as a voice and acting coach for the last thirty five years. She has worked on many West End shows and is particular sought out for her work on Shakespeare and other classical text. She also helps clients prepare for for film and television roles. Individual clients include: Louise Rednapp, James Purfoy, Clive Owen, Daniel Radcliffe, Jessie Buckley, Jude Law and Lenny Henry.She spent six years in the world renowned voice department at the RSC, working with top actors and directors. She is the author of two highly sucessful books FINDING YOUR VOICE [Foreward by Kenneth Branagh] and TACKLING TEXT [Foreward by Daniel Radcliffe].
Barbara has many areas of speciality: working with experienced actors who wish to extend their already well developed skills; preparing film actors to work on stage and stage actors to work on film; helping young actors with stage and screen roles; supporting singers and dancers who wish to develop their acting skills; dealing with issues of confidence and tension or nerves.
She also works with people from all walks of life - business people, teachers, doctors, young people etc - who wish to improve their confidence, communication, presentation or interview skills. She regularly helps journalists prepare to do voice-overs for their own documentaries and also works as a voice-over artist.
Catherine Charlton is one of the world's most sought after voice and dialect coaches. She has worked on numerous film, theatre and television productions. Catherine trained originally as an actor at the London Academy of Dramatic Art (LAMDA). After several years combining performance work with a partnership in a management training consultancy, she decided to specialise in voice and speech, gaining the Advanced Diploma in Voice Studies at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
Before establishing herself in the film world Catherine tutored at numerous theatre schools and University programmes in London. She was also responsible for the pioneering work at the faculty of Arts Tirane, Albania, where she designed and implemented their first voice training programme after the fall of the dictatorship.
Catherine's extensive work in British and International dialects gives her a refined understanding of the dynamics of speech and language and the ways in which we can adapt our own patterns of speech and vocalisation. She is known for her ability to quickly identify the issues creating the barriers to free, effective and enjoyable communication. Her approach will vary according to how she observes the way in which a particular person learns best. Most importantly she provides the support that is needed so that people feel confident to continue learning and developing.
Catherine has considerable experience working with non-native speakers of English and the challenges they face when working in a foreign language. Until a few years ago she lived in Austria and Hungary and speaks pretty good German and modest Hungarian.
As well as an impressive list of international artistes, she has trained speakers in a vast range of areas, from the professional presenters of NBC, BBC and Sky television to the multinational computer experts at the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) in Belgium, Other clients have included lawyers, scientists, sales and healthcare professionals, economists, software designers and publishers.
Through her extensive experience in the film world ( www.imdb.com), artists and directors she has worked with include-
Conor Fenton is an experienced teacher and linguist, and has worked as a language & dialect coach in the film industry since 2015. A graduate in Arabic and Russian from the University of Durham, he worked for over ten years as a teacher of English as Foreign Language and to Speakers of Other Languages, specialising in pronunciation - during this time he developed a keen interest in and mastery of phonetics.
During his degree, he spent time living and working in the Middle East and Russia, where he learned Arabic and Russian respectively. He has subsequently worked as a translator and interpreter. He is passionate about languages and in addition to Russian and Arabic, has good conversational French and German as well as a working knowledge of Japanese and Mandarin.
Daniele is the Resident Dialect coach on Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. She adapted Parseltongue from the films to the stage and helped to set up and maintain the dialects on the productions on Broadway, Melbourne, San Francisco and Toronto .
Edda feels privileged to have had the opportunity through her career to work on with a huge variety of theatre companies and productions, regionally and internationally, from the RSC and West End to the smallest of touring companies. She also works extensively as a voice, body language and communication coach for the public and private sectors.
She has a deep love of accents, voices, character and people, and her career has given her the opportunity to develop the skills and understanding to bridge the needs of the actor, the director, the text and the production.
She was Head of Voice and Dialect at the Shaw Festival Theatre in Canada for 20 years, working on over 100 productions there. She was Head of Voice at e15 Acting School from 1997 - 2001 and was the principal dialect teacher on the MA Voice Studies course at Central School of Speech and Drama for eight years. Edda has also provided teaching and masterclasses for Lamda, e15, Guildford, Arts Educational, Mountview, LIPA, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Edda's ground-breaking first book, 'How To Do Accents' (co-written with Jan Haydn Rowles) was published by Oberon Press in Oct 2007 and is a National Theatre best seller.
Edda is also an accredited Master NLP Practitioner.
Starring Eddie Redmayne in his first London role in a decade, "Cabaret" collected seven awards during a ceremony at London's Royal Albert Hall. Its haul included best musical revival, best actor in a musical (Redmayne), best actress in a musical for Jessie Buckley as Sally Bowles, and best director for Rebecca Frecknall.
Eleanor Manners has worked as a voice coach, director, actor and facilitator for 10 years. She trained at Rose Bruford College, Birmingham School of Acting, and The Arden School of Theatre. She has worked across Drama schools, on theatre productions and with in creative engagement.
She has worked extensively with young people and is the Youth Theatre Director at Leeds Playhouse. She has been associate directer and voice coach on productions such as Wizard of Oz and Oliver. She was the voice coach on the National tour of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory working closely with the young people in the cast.
Elspeth is an ex-BBC Producer who escaped the corporation in 2000 to follow her passion to become a Voice Coach. She invested in the MA in Voice Studies at Central School of Speech and Drama.
Job Titles:
- Voice Coach at the Royal Central School of Speech
For the past three years, Joel has been co-running the Diaspora Accents For Actors (DAFA) Workshops, which specify in accents ranging from, the Caribbean, to North, East, West and Southern African regions. Joel has also coached on a variety of urban and multi-ethnic British and American accents. His specialism in this variety of accents has led to coaching Oscar-Nominated artists.
Joel is passionate about quality voice and speech training across the performance, education and business sectors, and he aims to imbue all his clients with vocal confidence and communicative ownership.
Louise's passion is dialect work. She has helped casts deliver BAFTA award winning performances in U.K. set TV dramas (Anthony-BBC; Little Boy Blue-ITV.) She has extensive experience working on big budget international TV series (across Netflix, Disney, Apple and Amazon) - most recently overseeing dialects for a Marvel TV series.
Louise can provide extensive voice support to actors at all experience levels. She has a warm and supportive manner and is ready to help you hone an accent for a casting or to deliver a perfect performance for your next production.
Marion Déprez is an experienced teacher and became a French language coach for the film industry in 2017. A Graduate in French from the university of La Sorbonne, Paris IV, she worked for over 10 years teaching French as a foreign language specialising in pronunciation.
Marion Déprez moved to the UK in 2005 to complete a Master I and a diploma from La Sorbonne in French as a foreign language. She then trained in London as a performer and director in Jacques Lecoq School of Physical Theatre and started a career as an actress/ director and a French teacher.
Marion is passionate about education and finding new ways of teaching. She has designed a pronunciation course for Sussex University and is developing an online French pronunciation course.
Nia is a leading voice practitioner, with over 18 years experience working with professional actors for theatre, radio, film and television. She works in a professional theatre context, working with companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Donmar Warehouse, the Bridge theatre to name but a few and her credits for tv and film has seen her work for ITV, SKY, Netflix as well as independent production companies nationally and internationally. Her role often integrates voice coaching, body and breath work as well as Accent and Dialects. She has a keen understanding of vocal health, anatomy and physiology of the speaking voice as well as being an experienced and qualified singing coach/conductor and educator.
Job Titles:
- Director and Acting Coach
Nik Ashton is a UK based Director and Acting Coach. He works in theatre, film and TV, and is particularly experienced at working with young actors.
His film work includes being the Children's Director on the Netflix/Working Title film of Matilda the musical, and most recently he coached on All the Light We Cannot See directed by Shawn Levy, and Anatomy of a Scandal directed by SJ Clarkson.
In addition to his coaching, Nik regularly works with Lucy Bevan in casting young actors.
Nik's background is as a theatre director working for many companies including the National Theatre, the RSC, Chichester Festival Theatre, Welsh National Opera, Opera North and the Royal Opera House. He is the Worldwide Associate Director of Matilda the musical.
PEGGY HALL (formerly Hall-Plessas)
Areas of expertise: dialogue, dialect, character expression, acting in English, constructed languages
Born in the US and having dual Franco-American citizenship, Peggy is sought after internationally for film and television productions ranging from blockbuster to indie & art-house, as well as for private accompaniment. She is widely appreciated for the quality talent support that she provides to actors, directors, writers and producers, at times collaborating at producer-level.
Her credentials include renowned and award-winning titles, having worked with directors such as Lana Wachowski, Ron Howard, Terry Gilliam, Emmanuelle Bercot, Thomas Vinterberg, Marc Forster, Lasse Hallstrom, John Boorman, Mathieu Amalric… with executive and creative producers such as Barbara Broccoli, Luc Besson, Anne Thomopoulos, Rick McCallum, Tom Fontana… with actresses/actors such as Juliette Binoche, Max Von Sydow, Catherine Deneuve, Colin Firth, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Michael Nyqvist, Melanie Thierry, Tahar Rahim, Léa Seydoux, Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Matthias Schoenaerts, Halle Berry, Gregory Fitoussi, Rossy de Palma… along with a host of other tremendous talent.
She holds a B.A. Cum Laude with double majors in the Theatre and Foreign Languages & Linguistics departments from Hollins University, Virginia, USA, with continued education in language at La Sorbonne and the Tomatis Language Center, production, screenplay and dialogue courses at l'Université de Paris III, theatre at Le Cours Florent and the Susan Batson Studio, along with diverse, ongoing workshop and internship experiences and self-study exploration.
Rick Lipton has been a film, television, and theatre dialect coach for 20 years, coaching over 200 productions. He has worked with thousands of actors on a multitude of US, English and Worldwide accents.
In 2017, Rick was Tom Holland's personal dialect coach on Spider-Man: Homecoming, and for the upcoming films Chaos Walking, Spies in Disguise, and Avengers: Infinity War. He coached Carla Juri for Blade Runner 2049, James Norton for Flatliners, Luke Evans for Professor Marston And The Wonder Woman and Taron Egerton for Billionaire Boy's Club.