Zeb Soanes reveals why his stoke at age of 44 pushed him to star in play about Alec Guinness

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

On the first night of the revival of Mark Burgess’s play Two Halves of Guinness, Zeb Soanes sat backstage in his dressing room, preparing to spend the next two hours telling the life story of one of the 20th-century’s great theatrical knights, Sir Alec Guinness.

Surrounded by good luck messages from friends and family, Soanes made sure to read one small card in particular: a rare reply to a fan, more than 30 years old, from the man himself.

Soanes has one of the country’s most distinctive and beloved radio voices. For 25 years a BBC TV continuity announcer turned Radio 4 newsreader, with forays into The News Quiz, the Shipping Forecast and presenting the Proms on television, he now has the primetime evening slot presenting on Classic FM.

But as a trained actor who gave up a job in repertory theatre for the lure of the BBC – “broadcasting was a diversion that somehow lasted for half my life” – Soanes grew up on a diet of classic British films, including all the Ealing comedies, and quickly marked Guinness as his favourite: “Other actors like Olivier used to project their personality outward, while I always felt that Guinness was quieter, inviting us in.”

Aged 17, Soanes was even moved to write a letter to his idol, being careful to avoid any mention of Star Wars, which had famously become something of an (albeit lucrative) albatross for the versatile star. A week later, an envelope arrived at Soanes’s home in Suffolk, with a message short but sweet and eternally inspiring – “Good luck with your career.”

Now here we are, with Soanes in the title role of Two Halves of Guinness, a witty, intimate one-man exploration of Guinness’s life, sharing his reflections on a dazzling career on stage and screen and the luminaries he encountered along the way.

While Guinness famously opted to play all eight members of the D’Ascoyne family in 1949 caper Kind Hearts and Coronets, on stage Soanes delivers 33 characters in total – from Sir John Gielgud to Peter O’Toole and even Dame Edith Evans. His power of mimicry was the bane of his colleagues: at the BBC, Soanes delighted in buzzing through to producers in the voices of colleagues Peter Donaldson and Brian Perkins.

He’s had plenty of time to warm up. Soanes first went to see a production of Two Halves 15 years ago, when he realised he was too young for the part. This despite having a voice much older than his years: “Whenever guests visit the studio, they always seem surprised I don’t have a white beard and pipe.”

Much later, two things happened. In 2021, aged 44, he had a stroke in his London home. In the 10 minutes he sat waiting for an ambulance, Soanes felt “both an immense wave of gratitude for everything in my life, but also a sense of things left undone”, and one of them was this play. Secondly, he realised that 2025 would mark the 25th anniversary of Guinness’s death, and that he’d come of age himself to take on the role.

In 2022, he left the BBC to helm his own show at Classic FM. He says now: “Both are about storytelling, but my BBC job required following a script. It’s lovely being able to express myself fully, and to do other things besides.” Such things have included taking up the role of Chancellor for the University of Suffolk, and campaigning for a statue of Benjamin Britten to be erected in Lowestoft, the composer’s childhood home.

Does Soanes ever worry, like his idol, of the work drying up? He laughs. “I have what we’d call a portfolio career, and I love the variety of it all. This play has been a proper labour of love, and I never stop appreciating the fact I’m out there on stage, telling the story I’ve always wanted to tell.”

• Two Halves of Guinness is currently touring the UK – tickets are available now

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