Home > Television > People
Redvers Kyle 1929-2015
19 November 2015 tbs.pm/8044
We all knew Redvers Kyle’s voice, even if we didn’t know his name. The deep, chocolately tones with the unusual British-South African accent were much in demand for advertisements, voiceovers and even videogame characters between his arrival in the UK on the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company’s vessel ‘Pretoria Castle’ on 29 August 1952 up until his retirement in the 1990s.
He was a presenter for ATV London in 1955, then a voiceover for ITN’s filmed newsreels, an announcer on Associated-Rediffusion under Leslie Mitchell, dabbled in music writing, and became chief announcer of the relaunched Rediffusion London before going to Leeds to be chief announcer of the new Yorkshire Television in 1968.
For 1960s viewers outside of London, he was best known as the joint presenter (with Burt Weedon) of the children’s magazine programme Tuesday Rendezvous. For people who were young in the 1980s, he was one of the voices on Yorkshire Television’s cartoon series The Giddy Game Show.
He retired in 1993, but his voice was still heard announcing in the YTV region until 1998.
He died at the age of 85.
Redvers Kyle makes the authority announcement (over Widespread World of Rediffusion, used 1964-1968) for Rediffusion London in 1965
Redvers Kyle makes the authority announcement for YTV in 1974 over Yorkshire Television March, used 1968-1981
Manifest of the Pretoria Castle, on which Redvers Kyle arrived in the UK on in 1952
Busy Bachelor, a piece of music written by Redvers Kyle and used by ABC as a start-up tune in the late 1950s
Redvers Kyle closes down Yorkshire Television for the night on Friday 10 August 1984
Redvers Kyle makes the authority announcement for YTV over Chris Gunning’s New Yorkshire Theme and introduces today’s programmes in 1982
A recreation of a Rediffusion London daily startup.
A showreel of Redvers announcing for Yorkshire Television in the 1980s.
You Say
4 responses to this article
Simon Greenwood wrote 22 November 2015 at 11:37 am
“This is Yorkshire Television, broadcasting from the Emley Moor, Belmont and associated transmitters of the Independent Broadcasting Authority” into the march… fond memories of catching the startup in the late 70s and early 80s, often when off school.
Anthony Green wrote 26 November 2015 at 3:08 pm
I have a fond memory of Redvers Kyle, not as someone who ever worked in television, but as a viewer.
As a youngster there used to be a TV programme for children on ITV (Redifusion, I think) presented by Muriel Young and Peter Ling. Each week there was an ‘observation quiz’ – something that was on set in the first half of the show was missing in the second half, or vice versa. On this particular week, I think it was a vase that disappeared. So I sent in a postcard, and was gobsmacked the following week to hear my name being announced as the winner! And the name of the announcer? Redvers Kyle, of course. And what I didn’t realise until seeing his obituaries was that he lived less than 10 miles from where I used to live. RIP, Redvers, and condolences to his family.
John Ferguson wrote 15 August 2017 at 3:02 pm
Redvers & Paul Kaye (ex. Radio London DJ) both worked back in the 70s doing voice overs for an advertising reel, Granada Spotlight for a now defunct company 5 Cities Films.
I was one of the people involved.
Both of them were great, and very professional to work with.
Fond memories
Rachel Collins-Lister wrote 15 October 2019 at 3:56 pm
1970s. A two-year-old girl – me – sits in front of a television trying to play a recent pop hit on her toy guitar. She stops when she sees an image appear on the television. It’s a picture slide showing Warner Bros. cartoon characters on a pale blue background. And she knows that while this picture slide is on screen, Redvers Kyle will say “After the break on YTV, it’s cartoon time!”
Your comment
Enter it below