蜜芽传媒

Even if you haven't heard of Matt Berry, chances are you'll have heard his booming voice.

From the rich tones of licentious mogul Doug Renholm in The IT Crowd to the colonial diction of mad explorer Dixon Bainbridge in The Mighty Boosh to the voluminous voice of the Money Supermarket adverts, he's inescapable.

For someone who had no intention of becoming a comedian, Berry has done pretty well.

With his resonant voice, full-bodied hair and occasional beard he has made an art form out of playing the unreconstructed male and become a firm favourite with the cream of British alternative funny folk: he co-stars in Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's sitcom of surreal silliness, House of Fools, as the appropriately monikered Beef.

With his own Channel 4 sitcom, Toast of London, which garnered a Bafta nomination last year, Berry uses his real-life voiceover experiences to poke fun at acting and media professionals - particularly the insufferably hip ad producer Clem Fandango.

The eponymous Steven Toast showcases Berry's vocal dexterity and, with a leg up from co-writer Arthur Matthews (co-creator of Father Ted), confirms his comic writing prowess.

But away from his cornucopia of scene-stealing comedy bit-parts and cult-hit characters, Berry has a parallel career as a composer and musician.

On learning this, you can swiftly trace this musical bent throughout his comedy career: in the songs written for Steve Coogan's Saxondale, Snuff Box, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and in the self-assured melody of Take My Hand, which doubles as the theme tune for Toast.

Signed to Eddie Piller's Acid Jazz Records in 2011, Berry has released five albums - the latest of which, Music for Insomniacs (2014), was intended to offer a musical medicine for victims (himself included) of sleeplessness.

Influenced musically by the very decade to which much of his comedy owes a considerable debt - the 1970s - Berry's music sits somewhere between pastoral pop, freakish folk and progressive rock.

蜜芽传媒 Arts caught up with the hirsute polymath as he prepared to perform a one-off gig with his group The Maypoles at The Forum in London, where he talked musical beginnings, voiceover pitfalls and the "honour" of working with the "terrible actor" Bob Mortimer.

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