Falsetto, with added grit

August 4, 2026 — 9:00pm“I’ve had a few language epiphanies (C8) over the years,” writes Annandale’s David Evans. “But about 40 years ago, on holiday in New Caledonia (poor weather day), I saw John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn in Rooster Cogburn on TV, dubbed into French. Wayne was voiced by a squeaky tenor. I’m a baritone and notice such things. Quelle horreur!”“On a visit to my German granny in the early 1970s, she loved to watch Bonanza and marvelled at the cowboys’ beautiful German,” says Irene Wheatley of Heritage Park (Qld). “She wouldn’t believe me when I tried to explain dubbing. I also went to see A Man Called Horse, in German, of course. It was as puzzling to me as trying to decipher northern English and Scottish speech in any of our favourite TV police dramas these days.”There is