BBC Radio 4 lost its formal image for a few minutes this morning after newsreader Charlotte Green dissolved into giggles while reading a bulletin on the Today programme. She lost control after playing a clip of the oldest known recording of the human voice. Green’s hysterical outburst started after a studio member remarked that the 1860 recording of a woman singing the French song Clair de Lune sounded like a “bee buzzing in a bottle”. Presenter James Naughtie intervened as she struggled to tell listeners about the death of screenwriter Abby Mann.
