March 2020


Eavesdropper - BBC Radio 4 TX 13th April 2020 14.15-15.00

Rockethouse Produced thriller by Jeremy Raison.
Director Cherry Cookson
CLAIRE.............Lydia Leonard PAUL.................Lee Ingleby VOICE................Anton Lesser MIKE..................David Rintoul GRETA...............Amaka Okafor VALTERI............Stephen Critchlow NURSE................Rachel Atkins VOICES...............David Holt

Recording by Roh Onraet Sound design by Matt Thompson




December 2019

Little Women - Wireless theatre/Audible Original for Audible.
Narrator Laura Dern.
Director Rob Valentine, Music Isabel Herschmann, Adaptation Guy Meredith and R.D. Carstairs, Producers: Cherry Cookson, Mariele Runacre-Temple
All the sound design and mastering by Matt Thompson Rockethouse Productions.
audiobook




January 2019
TX BBC Radio 3 Between The Ears:
Jane Ray learned to swim in the South of France with the legendary swimming instructor Pierre Gruneberg.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00027cj



April 2018
Pacman and the Ghastly Garbage

Sound Design for computer game on Amazon Echo platform.


December 2017
The Audio Production Awards 2017

Sponsored by Audible and organised by the Radio Independents Group 

Sound Designer of the Year (Silver) 2017

For the ghosts and horses, amongst other sounds,  I created for Audible's Christmas Carol and Black Beauty directed by Cherry Cookson for The Wireless Theatre Company..


November 2017
The Little Chinese Maiden BBC Radio 4 - TX 11 Nov 2017

The poet William Wordsworth’s daughter Catherine was born in 1808 and died three years and nine months later. She lived her short life at Grasmere in an extended family which included the aspiring author Thomas De Quincey. On re-reading the Wordsworth letters, the biographer and poet Grevel Lindop realised there might be a lot more to this infant.
Featured on BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Week
LINK to audio
Producer Matt Thompson


October 2017
What do Sadhus do on their day off? BBC World Service radio documentary in production with Sir Mark Tully. Recorded in India by Matt Thompson


October 2017
Behind the Scenes BBC RADIO 4 Choreographer Crystal Pite and the Royal Ballet reveal the making of Flight Pattern, Crystal's moving debut with the company.
Flight Pattern is a moving and profound response to the international refugee crisis, set to the first movement of Henryk Górecki's Sympony no. 3, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. It received 5-star reviews when it premiered in the spring.
Such is the vast repertoire of the Royal Opera House, Flight Pattern was scheduled for very few performances in its first run. But, for two months this year, Crystal brilliantly described her working process to Radio 4. It's extremely rare for the Royal Ballet to allow access to the making of an artwork to this degree, and Crystal's openness was exceptional.
Crystal illuminates her process, her insights, her doubts. The programme accompanies her as she turns her early vision into a dance work for a major international stage - her dance phrase-making and her particular movement style, the challenge of working out how to dance to such powerful music (especially to the soprano's lament) and how to convey the experience of refugees. We hear costume fittings, the arrival of the set design and conjure up the power of light and shadow on stage.
Other speakers include Kevin O'Hare, the Director of the Royal Ballet, and Music Director Koen Kessels. Kristen McNally and Calvin Richardson, two young dancers, describe the impact of Crystal, a creative presence who flew in from Vancouver to make such a wrenching barefoot dance.
Recorded and produced by Frances Byrnes.


January 2017
Sinister - our second film.



December 2016
The Christmas Carol Audible/WirelessTheatre dramatised audiobook. This was a Cherry Cookson directed production for which I created the sound. Cherry had a fabulous ensemble cast including Sir Derek Jacobi. It was a complete pleasure working on such a high class project with Cherry and Mariele and the audible team. The music was terrific and composed by Isabel Sarah Herschmann.
I learnt new techniques in creating phantoms. It is always fascinating to see how Cherry uses music.
It has received over 1400 5 star reviews. The average is 4.7.


December 2016
Langston Hughes at The Third BBC RADIO 3 Presented by David Hendy. In 1964 - a presidential election year in the United States - the Third Programme broadcast an epic series about African-American life called 'The Negro in America'. In a coup for the BBC, it was co-produced by the great poet of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes. His series brought to the airwaves a range of sounds and voices of the Civil Rights struggle, of jazz music and black literature: sounds and voices that had rarely been heard in Britain. 'The Negro in America' is also the tale of an unlikely relationship.
It was a privilege to work with someone of David Hendy's calibre. I felt we did justice to the work created by Langston and Bridson all those years ago.


November 2016
Drugs and the Dentist BBC World Service programme. Drugs like crystal meth and opiates wreck the teeth as well as the mind. In America, more than just about any country, good teeth are a sign of success and so dentists like Dr Bob Carter are helping fix addicts’ teeth.
I had a fascinating 7 days in Greenville, North Carolina witnessing the work of dentists. I learnt something new about how to use generalisations rather than specifics in telling the story and in characterisation.


August 2016
The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler  Vanishing Point/National Theatre of Scotland production adapted for BBC Radio 3 by Sandy Grierson and myself. Band recorded by Julian Simons at DIn. Click on link above for full details and behind the scenes footage.


August 2016
10 hour audiobook sound design completed for Audible. Monster 1983 directed by Cherry Cookson. I was really editing and massaging the excellent sound design done by Tommi soundofsnow for the German edition. Much use of Speakerphone by Altiverb.


May 2016
The Jungle Book an audiobook directed by Cherry Cookson for Amazon/Audible has won a prestigious prize in the USA. I did the sound design for it. http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/audies/?category=&winners=true


May 2016
Two lovely radio programmes made by Frances Byrnes at The Rockethouse have gone out recently on Radio 4.
The Sprung Floor
Dancer and choreographer Dane Hurst has bought a former Rambert Company vinyl dance floor to take back to his home in South Africa, for under-privileged children to dance on.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079njxk
An Excellent Dumb Discourse: Shakespeare in Silence
Isn't silent Shakespeare an oxymoron? All that's nuanced, beautiful, meaningful in the poetry - silenced. Yet between 1899 and 1927, when the first commercial sound film was released, nearly three hundred Shakespeare films were made. Presented by Professor Judith Buchanan. Produced by Frances Byrnes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0773ld6


March 2016
Our first film 'No Hot Ashes' has been accepted for the Nashville Film Festival. https://nashvillefilmfestival.org/


March 2016
In london


February 2016
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
Bernard Berenson
My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.
Robert Bresson
Below is a photo of a Japanese Storyteller from the 1930's. I like to think it is what we do.



February 2016
Les Liaisons Dangereues. The Donmar Warehouse Production now downloadable as an audio play made possible by Audible Originals and Wireless Theatre. Rockethouse edited, designed sound and mastered the audio. We kept it minimal. Starring Dominic West, Janet McTeer and the original cast. You can get a copy for free HERE.


January 2016
Film 2 in post production
Sinister starring Thom Tuck and Ishbel McFarlane is now being edited by Sue Moles.   It will be less than 15' long and in B&W.   Camera is Leo Bruges.  1st AD Sandy Harris. Sound Paul Chan.  More credits and details to come.  


January 2016
 'An Excellent Dumb Discourse’: Shakespeare in Silence - BBC Radio 4 -  Frances Byrnes in production with presenter Professor Judith Buchanan, University of York.  300 Shakespeare films were made in the silent era! Why? Isn't Shakespeare's power in his blank verse and big ideas?   TX 17 April 2016


November -1
The Little Chinese Maiden BBC Radio 4 - TX 11 Nov 2017

The poet William Wordsworth’s daughter Catherine was born in 1808 and died three years and nine months later. She lived her short life at Grasmere in an extended family which included the aspiring author Thomas De Quincey. On re-reading the Wordsworth letters, the biographer and poet Grevel Lindop realised there might be a lot more to this infant.
Featured on BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Week
Producer Matt Thompson