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“I ended up hanging up the phone as the engaged tone was driving me mad,” he said.

The paper says the problem is actually even worse, as the figures do not include callers who just got an engaged tone.

It was a performance in Kes at Manchester’s Royal Exchange theatre in 2004, after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama, that set the politically engaged tone of Garfield’s career.

In October, it meant 3,768 callers did not get through and another 2,763 got an engaged tone.

A number of customers were also charged for an engaged tone when they tried to buy tickets over the phone.