As Asa broadcaster on a national radio show, there’s always an awareness that listeners are relying on the evocative power of your voice to immerse themselves in a story or interview. But when Newstalk ZB host Francesca Rudkin was reading out an entertaining editorial piece on air, a listener’s blunt critique caught her off-guard.
“I remember a woman texted in to say, ‘Goodness, you sound like Darth Vader!’” recalls Francesca, who gives a re-enactment of the Star Wars character whose lungs were scorched by lava.
“And I thought, ‘Yeah, I do, don’t I?’ because I was taking huge breaths in between sentences. Then I noticed that by the end of my show, I was starting to lose my voice a bit, which was really weird because I was quite fit.”
In the weeks that followed, the mum of two became increasingly perplexed that something was up with her health. Small changes like suddenly puffing while walking to the
