plays where the actors can't do the accent

I think a lot of us have hybrid accents nowadays as a result of moving areas as children or later moving for college or work. It has probably watered down our accents and diminished the use of dialect.

Once met a young man from Bocholt in Belgium who spoke with a perfct English accent. He said he was often told this but that he came to Newcastle and couldn't understand a word they said!

My daughter is an actress. She says Norfolk and Bristolian accents are considered the most difficult to do but luckily she is Bristolian. An actor needs to immerse himself in a locality to pick up an authentic accent and luckily she has a good ear and friends with different accents. She records audio books and being able to assign different accents to different characters is helpful, but she will turn down books that she feels she cannot do justice to, a Geordie accent for example. Some listeners love her different accents and some are occasionally slated! It is really a personal thing.

Since I am Cornish, I loath some actor’s attempt at Cornish accents. Being from the county, I can often identify which part of Cornwall people are from as I imagine others can do if they live in say, Yorkshire. It is irritating when actors try to do a certain West Country accent and end up with a generalised country bumpkin sounding accent.

I love Sarah Lancashire but casting her in that drama, Kiera, I think it was called, set in Bristol just didn’t seem right. Better to have let her use her natural northern accent. People do move around to work!

Why is it that every single 'northern' accent is a variation on those in 'Emmerdale'? Mostly because: a friend had bagged an audition for a Manchester based role and on the way up from dahn sahth on train she watched back-to-back .....Emmerdale!!? Apparently it's the go to tuition for the struggling actor....and sooooo wrong!

JackyB

No one ever gets Norfolk or Suffolk right.

I remember Daniel Radcliffe saying that he once acted in a play set in Galway. He started off with a generic Irish accent but the other players soon put him right and he worked hard at the Galway. I expect he is very conscious of this now, so I will watch out for him doing other accents.

And with an Irish accent its awful when the actor loses the accent and it comes and goes ! And people say that a Welsh accent can decend into an Indian accent ... thats funny ..

Fair enough, it’s not Norfolk but I thought Ralph Fiennes Suffolk accent in “The Dig” was well researched and excellent.

www.uos.ac.uk/content/dig-and-distinctive-suffolk-twang