Emma Clarke (born 1971) is an English writer of comedy and drama scripts and an award-winning voice-over artist, best known as the voice of the automated messages on the

Bakerloo The Bakerloo line () is a London Underground line that goes from in suburban north-west London to in south London, via the West End. Printed in brown on the Tube map, it serves 25 stations, 15 of which are underground, over . It runs partly ...

, Central and Waterloo & City lines of the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The U ...

. Most of Clarke's work has been used in television commercials and radio outside the United Kingdom, notably in the Netherlands, Australia, and the United States.

Early life

Emma Clarke was born and raised in Sale,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's coun ...

(now part of

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tamesid ...

). She started a theatre company at age 17 which specialised in training for businesses and groups in both the public and private sector. On graduation she worked for BBC Light Entertainment, where she wrote and performed

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

, and

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

. Her father spotted an advert looking for voice over artists in the ''Sale and Altrincham Messenger''; after failing her first interview, she studied the art for two years before gaining her first paid work.

Career

In 1998, Clarke was approached by a media company representing one of the three companies that operated parts of the London Underground, who were looking for a replacement automated customer announcer. After 18 months of focus-group testing, in which her voice was dubbed "Marilyn", she was awarded a contract to produce announcements in 1999. She was dismissed by London Underground in 2007 after posting a series of spoof announcements, mocking tourists and commuters, on her own website. Between 2009 and 2017 her voice was replaced on the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Victoria lines by announcements voiced by Sarah Parnell.FOI request detail: Central Line (Request ID: FOI-4323-1718)
at Transport for London; published February 27, 2018; retrieved August 30, 2019 Her other clients include the BBC,

Gillette Gillette is an American brand of safety razors and other personal care products including shaving supplies, owned by the multi-national corporation Procter & Gamble (P&G). Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, it was owned by The ...

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

, Classic FM, Homebase and "3" mobile phones. Along with her solo work, she is the managing director of Just Add Voice, a company which provides voice-over tracks. In 2016, she voiced the starship Avalon in the

Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acq ...

film '' Passengers'', which starred Jennifer Lawrence and

Chris Pratt Christopher Michael Pratt (born June 21, 1979) is an American actor. He rose to prominence for playing Andy Dwyer in the NBC sitcom ''Parks and Recreation'' (2009–2015). He also appeared in The WB drama series '' Everwood'' (2002–2006) ...

Personal life

Clarke, her husband, and their two children live in

Altrincham Altrincham ( , locally ) is a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, south of the River Mersey. It is southwest of Manchester city centre, southwest of Sale and east of Warrington. At the 2011 Census, it had a population o ...

References

External links

Official siteJust Add VoiceSpoof London Underground Announcements
* 1971 births Living people People from Sale, Greater Manchester English voice actresses People associated with transport in London {{UK-voice-actor-stub

Early life

Career

Personal life

See also

References

External links