Jay Benedict’s first voice work was dubbing risqué movies in Paris at the age of 15 opposite his mother: “Switch off, darling! It’s paying the school fees!” By 1972, he had moved to London, where he recorded his first ADR session on Lady Caroline Lamb for the legendary Robert Rietti. This led to subsequent sessions for, among others, Louis Elman and Brendan Donnison, and foreign language dubbing at Worldwide Pictures. In the late 70s, when the world of the voiceover established itself in Soho, Jay joined Talkies and became the voice of L’Oreal and Diet Pepsi. He was a regular station voice at Capital Radio with producer Gail Smith. In 2002, he and Phoebe were approached by Steve Cook to find voices for projects at Future Post, and Sync or Swim was born. The company grew from humble beginnings casting just two projects that year to handling more than 125 during the final year of Jay’s life.

Jay was so proud that Britain had become the world leader in sound recording for film, television, radio, commercials and documentaries. He thought of all the voices, the editors, the production companies, the post production teams, the engineers, the writers, directors and producers, the studio staff and runners he worked with as his family.

With your help, we will commission a sculpture – a symbolic representation of the trappings of voice recording such as headphones, microphones and lips – to be placed in Soho. This will honour not only Jay’s work, but the work of all those heroes – sung and unsung – who have kept London at the centre of the industry since Major William De Lane Lea opened the first sound studio in Soho seventy-five years ago.