Audio Guide Credits
Production:
Executive Producer: Nina Diamond
Director, Producer, and Writer: Benjamin Korman
Sound Designer and Editor: Brendon Anderegg, Telescope Audio
Sound Engineer: Dave Raymond
Production Coordinator: Rachel Smith
Voice actors:
Tavia Gilbert: Narrator, Charlotte Brontë, Mrs. Phillip Lybbe Powys
Simon Prebble: Bishop John Fisher, Tobias Smollett, Earl of Shelburne, William Morris, Richard Cooksey
Jeff Ward: Charles I, John Newton, Thomas Chippendale, Voltaire
Desmond Thorne: Olaudah Equiano
Lizzie Clelland: Queen Victoria
Speakers in order of appearance:
Wolf Burchard is an associate curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, specializing in British furniture and decorative works of art.
Mechthild Baumeister is a conservator specializing in the examination and treatment of furniture, wooden objects, and historic interiors in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts.
Kate Malone is an established London-based ceramicist whose research on glazes is part of the UK’s public school arts curriculum.
Cayce Zavaglia is a St. Louis-based embroiderer and painter who specializes in hyper-realistic portraits of close friends and family.
Morel Doucet is a Miami-based Haitian-American potter, interdisciplinary artist, and educator.
Historical characters in order of appearance:
Bishop John Fisher, an English Catholic bishop and theologian who opposed King Henry VIII when he requested a divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon. His account is based on Richard Rex’s 1991 book The Theology of John Bishop.
Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625–1649. The source of his quote is his declaration on the dissolution of Parliament on March 10, 1628.
John Newton, a clergyman for the Church of England and abolitionist. His account comes from his 1788 book, Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade.
Olaudah Equiano, a writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a child and went on to purchase his freedom in 1766 and moved to London. His account comes from his 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African.
Voltaire, a French Enlightenment writer and philosopher who spent two and a half years in England in exile. His first account was taken from Voltaire: A Sketch of his Life and Works with Selections from his Writings by J.M. Wheeler and G.W. Foote, first published in 1894. His second account comes from “Letter X: On Trade” from Voltaire’s 1734 collection of essays, Letters on the English.
Richard Cooksey, a guest of King George III at Croome Court in 1788. His account comes from a letter Cooksey wrote to George William Coventry, 7th Earl of Coventry on July 29, 1788.
Thomas Chippendale, an English cabinetmaker who was the father of the Anglicized Rococo style. His account comes from the preface of the first edition of his 1754 book of designs, The Gentleman & Cabinet Maker’s Director.
Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys, an English aristocrat. Her account comes from a diary entry of hers from March 23, 1767 after visiting the queen’s apartment at Buckingham house.
Tobias Smollett, a Scottish poet and author. His account is an excerpt from his History of England from the Revolution to the Death of George the Second from 1810.
Earl of Shelburne, Prime Minister of England 1782–83. His account comes from Egerton Ryerson’s The Loyalists of America and their Time, Volume II from 2018.
Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 until her death in 1901. Her account is an excerpt from a letter she wrote to Lord Panmure regarding reinforcements for India on June 29, 1857.