Behind the Mike Q&A: Simon Jones 

With over 30 years of film, radio, television, and theater experience, Simon Jones (www.simonjonesinfo.com) has moved many an audience with his clear, distinct, British-accented voice and often deadpan delivery. An audiobook narrator since 1986, he has recorded over 60 titles, many of them Audie Award nominees and one—Mitch Cullin’s A Slight Trick of the Mind (HighBridge Audio, 2005)—a winner of that award. Among his most recent recordings are Daniel Ariely’s The Upside of Irrationality (HarperAudio) and Robert Harris’s Conspirata (S. & S. Audio), both released in 2010.

What have been your favorite audios to record to date?
Jonathan Stroud’s “Bartimaeus” books: The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye, Ptolemy’s Gate, and [the prequel to that trilogy,] The Ring of Solomon (Listening Library, 2004–10). I have really enjoyed relishing the role of Bartimaeus, evil demon extraordinaire. Stroud has created a fascinating alternative world where magic and the spirit world have real and corrupting power. The books are also funny as hell (or wherever Bartimaeus lives when not being tormented by his masters).

I also enjoyed doing Cornelia Funke’s The Thief Lord (Listening Library, 2002). There were a number of children who needed to be given some individuality, and I noticed that one was described as having gaps in his teeth, so I proposed that he should have a slight lisp. Cornelia was delighted, and so we went with it.

Are there any other narrators whose work you admire?
Well, I’d listen more to other recordings if I drove longer distances, so except when I’m repainting the house, I tend to listen to BBC Radio 4. But I’ve always been a fan of Martin Jarvis, who once accused me, when we were both seeing a play at the Hampstead Theatre Club in London, of being his chief competition. I wonder whether he mistook me for someone else—I only wish I had that distinction! Martin is the most prolific and consistently brilliant performer in this field, beside whom the rest of us pale in comparison.

I also hugely enjoyed Rufus Sewell reading Russell Thorndyke’s “Dr. Syn” books, which I heard on BBC radio.

Which single production of yours do you feel belongs in every library?
Eoin Colfer’s addition to Douglas Adams’s “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” series, And Another Thing… (Hyperion Audio, 2009). Having been intimately involved with the radio, TV, and audiobook [versions of the] series, as the hero Arthur Dent, I was not optimistic that Colfer could pull it off and was delighted to find as I recorded it for audio that he did, triumphantly. Let’s put them all in the library.

What are you working on now?
I’m appearing in a play called Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer, erstwhile managing editor of the Daily News. It’s set in Florence in 1504 and concerns a competition arranged by Piero Soderini, gonfaloniere (chief minister of the Republic), and his chancellor, Machiavelli, between Leonardo and Michelangelo to paint murals in the Great Hall. It’s a little-known but significant encounter between the great figures of the Renaissance, a discussion of art in the service of politics. I play Soderini as a rather steely version of Ronald Reagan. We hope that, with the enthusiastic backing of the Shubert Organization, we might come up with a show for Broadway.