[pip08456]

The world's gone mad.

Covid: UK town crier championships to be held in silence

The championships were cancelled last year due to the pandemic, and were last held in public in Darlington in 2019.

Ms Williams said judges usually looked at three distinct parts of a cry, sustained volume and clarity, diction and inflection, and content.

This year, the competition will only look at content, which must not deviate from the chosen theme of "nature and the environment".

Dorchester's crier, Alistair Chisholm, is a 10-time and current national champion who describes crying as "an extreme sport".

He said the quality of the written cries was important, but the competition would not be the same without sound.

"When you write a cry you write it for you," he said. "You put in your own expression onto the page for your voice alone."

He added that he tried crying in a face mask during lockdown, but "they make it come out all muffly".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-...5Bpost+type%5D