British and Irish voices are in demand in America for promotional films and advertisements. You can understand why.

If Liam Neeson voiced the instructional guide to a new piece of technical equipment with the correct amount of menace you would be loathe to ask for your money back, even if it was faulty.

“If you complain, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.”

Others may want a Helen Mirren voice to give royal gravitas to a washing powder, a Hugh Grant sound-a-like to wish a young lady happy birthday or Sean Connery to promote tea bags: “The name is Bond. Brooke Bond.”

The website People Per Hour, which provides voices for promo films, says the demand for Brit and Irish voices has doubled in the past year.

They compiled a top 20 of the voice types most wanted.

Top five are Lady Mary (actress Michelle Dockery) from Downton Abbey, Hugh Grant, Daniel Craig, Colin Farrell and James McAvoy. Others in the list include Helen Mirren, Hugh Laurie, Idris Elba, Sean Connery and Liam Neeson. There are even two regional accents: Cheryl Fernandez-Versini (Newcastle) and Keith Lemon (Leeds).

Geordie in the Deep South? A Leeds Loiner in the Big Apple?

The idea of using a voice that can be identified while extolling the virtues of toothpaste or motorcars is acceptable. Sometimes it’s fun trying to guess who it is. It took me ages to realise Timothy Spall is the voice behind Wickes.

But TV adverts that feature stars, as opposed to actors can be embarrassing. Is Harvey Keitel so skint he has to reprise his role as a mobster for Direct Line? Sylvester Stallone has become the face of Warburton’s Bread. Presumably he liked the dough. And words fail me every time Ray Winstone offers the odds for bet365.

As broadcaster Danny Baker said: “Wouldn’t it be a treat if at half-time Ray Winstone just said ‘tell you what, keep your money tonight and buy your mum some flowers.’”

Two of the funniest TV and film adverts didn’t need voices. They just used famous faces.

Gregor Fisher, who became Rab C Nesbitt, was the Baldy Man in a photo booth in the classic Hamlet cigar advert. But the laugh-out-loud one that sticks in my memory featured Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan robbing a bullion house in Cyprus for Benson and Hedges in 1973. Find it on YouTube.

No words, just comic genius.