Andrew Vine: TV viewers speak up against rise of '˜Mumblevision'

THIS is no way to enjoy television. Hunched forward, head cocked to one side, straining to hear the dialogue, and asking of the other people in the room 'Eh? What did he say?'
Yorkshire actor Sam Riley stars in SS-GB where characters have been accused of mumbling.Yorkshire actor Sam Riley stars in SS-GB where characters have been accused of mumbling.
Yorkshire actor Sam Riley stars in SS-GB where characters have been accused of mumbling.

The trouble is, they didn’t catch it, either. Cue exchange of bewildered looks and shrugs of shoulders. Welcome to prestige prime-time drama. Or, put another way, Mumblevision.

Mutter, mutter, mutter. Mumble, mumble, mumble. Meaningful glances between the characters on screen, but completely indistinct words. Gripping? No. Annoying? Yes.

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The plot goes whizzing by, leaving viewers trailing in its wake and wondering what the hell’s going on, sensing that the leading character’s last line had huge significance, if only they had been able to hear it.

Forgive me if I appear simplistic, but I thought that the point of the big, quality drama series on the box was to entertain the audience, not leave it baffled by inaudible dialogue.

The chief culprit in the world of Mumblevision is currently the BBC’s SS-GB, which looks great but sounds terrible. The first episode prompted complaints both to the corporation and on Twitter that viewers could not follow the dialogue.

The second, on Sunday evening, was hardly better. After the first, I fished out my 30-year-old paperback of Len Deighton’s novel on which the series is based for a quick flick through the first 50 pages or so to remind myself of the plot so I could at least guess at what was being muttered. As the hour drew to a close, I asked myself “Is it me, or do a lot of the characters sound like they’re speaking through a gas mask?”

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No actually, it isn’t me, or any of the people taking to Twitter to vent their frustration, who are the problem.

The nation has not suddenly become cloth-eared. It’s that those responsible for a lot of television drama have forgotten the need to speak clearly. There’s no point having high-definition tellies if the delivery of lines is in low definition.

My television’s volume is usually at about the 25 mark. News, documentaries, comedies and films come through with perfect clarity. But even turned up to 50 – loud enough to make the floorboards vibrate during occasionally noisy segments – some of SS-GB’s dialogue was still muffled.

This isn’t the first time that Mumblevision has prompted an audience backlash. Three years ago, the BBC’s dramatisation of Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn had viewers switching off in their millions, and more than 2,000 people complained.

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The same complaint has been made of the crime drama Happy Valley that was set in West Yorkshire and starred Sarah Lancashire.

The combination of muttered dialogue and incomprehensibly “authentic” West Country accents meant that Jamaica Inn might just as well have been performed in Swahili for all the sense it made to vast swathes of the audience.

Then as now, the criticism prompted a hurt reaction from producers, who said they couldn’t find anything wrong with the sound.

Well maybe not in the optimum conditions of editing suites, but it wasn’t working in the living rooms where a frustrated audience gave up the struggle and switched over.

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And implying that it was somehow the audience’s fault isn’t a formula for encouraging viewers to stick with a series.

Sorry chaps, but it isn’t our fault if we’re either losing the plot or switching off because we can’t be bothered straining to catch the words. It’s yours. You’re supposed to be storytellers, so make sure we can hear what’s going on.

I could always resort to switching the subtitles on, but that really shouldn’t be necessary for anybody not suffering from a degree of hearing impairment, and it’s a distraction.

The problem lies with actors and producers. A few years ago, Jean Alexander, who gained television immortality thanks to her role as Hilda Ogden in Coronation Street, told me she disliked a lot of modern drama series. The reason was the style of some of the acting irritated her. “They don’t enunciate properly,” she said. “I call it talking behind their teeth.”

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It was a striking phrase and it popped into my mind as the SS-GB cast flared their nostrils and exchanged mumbled snarls at what was presumably a moment of high tension.

A lot of drama is in the grip of a fad for grunt-and-mumble performances that aim to be naturalistic but only succeed in baffling audiences.

Nobody expects actors to deliver every line like Laurence Olivier declaiming Shakespeare, but it’s self-defeating not to be heard. This isn’t experimental theatre but prime-time television.

Come on, it’s not difficult to put an end to Mumblevision. It may not be the most artistically profound direction to give an actor, but the suggestion that they speak up a bit has to be one of the most important.

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