The pleasant, inflectionless female voice behind the prerecorded announcements on the London Underground (commonly referred to as "Sonia", as in "gets on ya' nerves") is a voiceover artist and comedy/drama writer named Emma Clarke. Like many freelance professionals contending in today's marketplace, she has a web site to promote her work, which, among other things, includes a selection of spoof Tube announcements, chiding self-important Sudoku enthusiasts, loud American tourists and surreptitious lechers, and reminding Londoners that there are other places in Britain than their "stinking shithole of a city", all in the comfortingly familiar Sonya voice.

Clarke's site also has a number of other diversions, including a Flash game allowing you to assemble a radio ad from prerecorded clichés.

Posted by: Ben | | Mon Nov 26 19:46:39 2007

Apparently TfL didn't find it so funny:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7113545.stm

Posted by: Bill | | Sat Feb 23 23:00:19 2008

Actually, her voice on the tube is anything but "inflectionless" and she has been given free reign to make it really really irritating. I hope that, now she has shown her disrespect for the job by making spoof announcemetns on her web site that these announcementsare replaced by a voice that is pleasant to listen to and not put there for tourists or someone who is making just one journey - how about Joanna Lumley? Now there is a voice that purrs!

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