Kilkenny voice actor joins celebrities raising funds for cancer research

A Kilkenny voice actor is one of 175 actors and celebrities who are taking part in a project to raise funds for cancer research.

Mark Collins joined many, many voice actors in partaking in ‘Wonderland 2: Alice Through the Looking Glass’, where each participant reads a minute’s worth of the Lewis Carroll novel as part of an audiobook.

Brad Shaw, voice actor and founder of the voiceover training community, Wonderland VO, organised the project. 

Mark Collins had met Brad Shaw previously in London at a training course. 

Mark described Brad as a trailblazer in the voiceover community.

“He’s kind of like a leader. Nothing will put him down. He survived multiple rounds of cancer and he keeps fighting.”

At the beginning of the first Covid-19 lockdown, Brad was diagnosed with stage three melanoma and had to undergo a year of immunotherapy. Just as he was getting over that, he was told he had prostate cancer and had an operation, just over a year ago. 

Recently, he was informed that the stage three melanoma had returned and he had an operation at the Royal Marsden Cancer hospital to remove lymph nodes from under his arm. 

During the first lockdown, Brad created ‘The Wonderland Challenge’ which included 159 voiceovers, which included many famous actors and celebrities who each recorded a minute of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and donated to the NHS. 

On his fundraising page, Brad wrote that it felt like the right time to launch ‘Wonderland Challenge 2: Alice Through The Looking Glass’ in aid of cancer research. 

“When he was looking for people to get involved, we all volunteered and lent our voices to the project,” said Mark.

“Any kind of fundraiser for cancer research, people are going to try and get behind.”

“To be able to be creative and use your talents and your voice to raise some money, that’s brilliant.”

Mark features in the first chapter which was released on December 4. 

A chapter of the book will be released every two days, with the last 3 short chapters being released together, so the complete book is available before Christmas.

Mark said the chapters are ‘very engaging’ to listen to as there are different actors reading every minute with different voices that switch from male to female.

He also said that the voiceover community is very tight knit, something he was quite surprised by initially as most voice actors record their work solo.

“You would think you’re competition because you’re looking for jobs but everybody supports everybody, it’s great. It’s a great community.”

Participation in the Wonderland Challenge is not limited to voice actors, stage and television actors have also lent their voices to the project.

Some of the other narrators include Phyllis Logan of Downton Abbey and Kevin McNally, who played Mr Gibbs in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

As of December 8, more than £4,800 has been raised for cancer research.