Mike Yarwood

Some of you will be old enough to remember the Mike Yarwood show. He did impressions. At the end of the show, he'd sign off with: "And this is me." My dad would then shout: "We know!" The implication being that all of Mike Yarwood's impressions sounded like him, putting on a bit of a voice. His Eddie Waring was good, we'll give him that, but everyone could do Eddie Waring.

What did he mean by "and this is me"? We have two options:

a) I have been an absolute genius for the last half hour, and only this sign that I am returning to my own personality can convince you that I'm not doing an impression of a third party, also called Mike Yarwood.

b) This is an impression of me; none of you know what I sound like in real life, and only my genius can portray it.

Whichever it was, Mike Yarwood's voice, or 'Mike Yarwood's' voice, was the dullest in the show.

If we take him at his word, and assume that he was simply talking as Mike Yarwood, using an unaffected *Mike Yarwood voice*, it begs the question: is it possible to do an impression of yourself? Perhaps you had a cassette machine as a kid; do you remember the fist time you heard your own voice? To most I think it came as a shock, for some reason your ears, which were as close to that voice as anything else (and built to hear things, goddammit), didn't give you the real thing. Because your voice sounded normal, apart from not being what you quite expected, you may not be tempted to do an impression of it. It would be futile too, you're not that silly.

One man who may have attempted an impression of himself is Michael Caine. How many times must he have pitched up at an interview, only to be asked once again: "Have you ever said: 'not a lot of people know that'?" I seem to remember him putting on that voice to join in, so as not to sound like a grump. Poor sod. I do however have evidence that the self-impression can, and has, been done.

Working in a University kitchen, there was one of our number (I'll call him 'Kevin' because it isn't his name) who had a particular speech pattern he used when expressing disdain at others, or life in general. If, for instance, Kevin thought the menu particularly dull, he would list the dishes that he would add to pep it up.

The list would start quietly:
"Ham & chips, gammon,..."
But, as the ideas flowed, and the realisation struck that there were so many dishes ignored by the powers that be, the voice would growl, growl some more, and increase in volume with each addition:
"..SHEPHERRRRRDS PIE!!,  STEAK AAAAND KIDNEY PIE!!!..."

After a while, most of the others in the kitchen could do a pretty good impression of this, and we'd look for excuses to start a list of our own. Kevin didn't seem to realise that we were doing an impression of him, and eventually the day came when he did an impression of one of us, doing an impression of him. And what did it sound like? The same, only louder. A bit disappointing really.



P.S. If you want to know how to do an impression on Twitter, here's how:

Frank Spencer:

*Frank Spencer face* *Frank Spencer voice* "Ooh, Betty."

You're welcome.