It was the moment when the normally austere voice of the morning news collapsed in a fit of giggles.

Newsreader Charlotte Green broke down in hysterics in the middle of a bulletin on Radio 4's Today programme yesterday after introducing an item about the oldest known recording of the human voice.

As the clip of a woman singing the French song Au Clair de la Lune played, one of her colleagues apparently whispered in her ear that it sounded like a bee buzzing in a bottle.

This caused her to start laughing, known in the trade as corpsing, and her gig- gling only got worse as she attempted to read a report about the death of Hollywood screenwriter Abby Mann, who won an Academy Award in 1961 for his film Judgment at Nuremberg.

Scots journalist James Naughtie was forced to intervene and his co-presenter, Ed Stourton, later apologised to Mann's family. "We have been inundated with hundreds of e-mails asking us to play that again," Stourton said. "We hope that the family of Abby Mann will understand that it obviously wasn't intended as any slight towards him."

Scores of listeners posted comments on the BBC's message boards, with some saying Green's giggles had "brightened up a gloomy Friday" and others complained about "unprofessional" laughter.

One listener, posting online, said: "Most unfortunate as she was announcing the death of Hollywood writer and producer Abby Mann. Very unprofessional Charlotte!"

However, another added: "We have all done something like this in the past. When you get the giggles it is always worse when you should be serious!!! I couldn't stop laughing when I heard her."

Green said later: "I'm afraid I just lost it, I was completely ambushed by the giggles."

It was the second time Green has fallen victim to corpsing. In 1997 she had a fit of giggles after reading an item about Papua New Guinea's head of armed forces - Jack Tuat.

After that incident, she said: "It's an open secret I have a ribald sense of humour. For me, it's essential to laugh at the absurdity of life. Inevitably, the laughter sometimes spills over into my work and I find myself poleaxed by merriment."

The BBC said yesterday they had received five complaints.