Frostrup, Irons have 'perfect voice'

The perfect female voice is a combination of Mariella Frostrup, Dame Judi Dench and Honour Blackman, new research has found.

Experts made the discovery after creating a new mathematical formula to find the ideal voices for men and women.

Alan Rickman, Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon performed best in the male category of the poll, which was commissioned by Post Office Telecoms.

The ideal voice should speak no more than 164 words per minute and pause for 0.48 seconds between sentences, according to the formula.

The research was carried out by University of Sheffield linguist Andrew Linn and sound engineer Shannon Harris, who asked people to rate 50 voices.

They analysed the results based on a combination of tone, speed, frequency, words per minute and intonation.

Linn said most men found presenter Frostrup's voice "mesmerising" because it was deep, slow and confident, while Irons came closest to the ideal voice.