plays where the actors can't do the accent

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

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 ..

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!

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!

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!

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.

In 1985, there was a TV adaptation of "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole" and I have held a grudge about the accent ever since then. "Adrian Mole" is set in Leicester which was the home of the writer, the late great Sue Townsend. It happens to be my home too, and I love the books. The adaptation irritated me because the actors had Birmingham accents, particularly Julie Walters who played Pauline Mole with a broad Brummie accent.

If anyone had done a smidgeon of research, they would have realised that people don't all have the same accent just because they live in the Midlands.

I bet SB would do a brilliant “Full Monty” too!.

lizzypopbottle

I've heard that Sean Bean does a brilliant Sheffield accent. He's from Sheffield, of course. I never watched Game of Thrones (such violence and bloodshed) but I believe SB insisted all his GoT family had to do a Sheffield accent to fit in with his because he won't speak any other way and it wouldn't sound authentic if his 'family' spoke differently.

I agree SB, originally from just up the road, has an authentic Sheffield accent but not the stereotypical Yorkshire man of:
‘Yorkshire born, Yorkshire bred
strong in ‘t arm and thick in t’ head’

Perhaps it’s sometimes ancient stereotyping. I live in Yorkshire and often the accent is wrongly portrayed as ‘thee and thou’ and abbreviation of the to t’. I’m in my late 60s and there were echoes of that in my youth but very rarely now

I've heard that Sean Bean does a brilliant Sheffield accent. He's from Sheffield, of course. I never watched Game of Thrones (such violence and bloodshed) but I believe SB insisted all his GoT family had to do a Sheffield accent to fit in with his because he won't speak any other way and it wouldn't sound authentic if his 'family' spoke differently.

Blinko

Black Country - it's a dialect, not an accent. And it isn't Birmingham!

Here! Here! As someone from the Black Country, I get really annoyed being called a brummie.

Actors trying to do an "Irish" accent can be unintentionally hilarious.
Ireland must have as many dialect and accent variations as the UK and as many subtle class distinctions too.
Living in Dublin for many years, I've discovered that I can often tell who grew up in which suburb and even, in some cases, can distinguish which school they went to. There is a world of difference between an educated Dublin professional's Hiberno-English and, for example, a Midland farmer's or west coast fisherman's accent, all equally valid.
Actors are apt to do a sort of daft " Top-of-the-morning-to -you" accent which has never ever been heard of in real life ?.

Kevin Whately trying to do an American accent in Gypsy the musical opposite Imelda Staunton

Felice - that would be floories then.

Grannybuy, [flowers[

Guess my ignorance knows no bounds as to the where of different accents. As long as I can make out what they're saying I'm happy. Many people don't remain in the area where their accent was derived so I see it as inconsequential.

The only English actor I've ever heard doing a believable Scottish accent is Emma Thomson - but I believe her mother is Scottish

muse - I wish I could remember the film, but I remember critics saying that it was a brilliant story line and well acted but would need subtitles because of the strong authentic accents. I think it was the Liverpool accent.
Maybe you are thinking of a TV series called Lilies which was great but very hard to follow the Liverpool accents especially the father. Strangely enough, he was actually Scottish! It was Brian McCardie who played the evil Tommy Hunter in Line of Duty.

Felice - aye, there's a lot of ie's added on in the north east. Efter ye get yer jobbies da'en, ging doon i toon on i bussie tae the shoppies.

Alegrias - aye, files!

Jodie Comer can do any accent at all. She is amazing. The cast of East Enders would be lost if they had to adopt a northern accent.

In the early sixties my children went on exchanges with French children. We all, met at Victoria station and the French children were sent to different places all over U.K. I wonder how they got on with the different dialects.
My son went to the north of France and my daughter to the South. They came back with different accents. I noticed it because I spoke (so I was told by French people) Parisian French.
I am sorry that most of the old dialects are disappearing.

The Devonshire accent nearly always sounds Cornish. But really done awful.

Hi John,
I bet your reading sounded so authentic in such a setting. The accent is so different across the boarder. Gretna really is another country. We knew an old chap from Carlisle and he always pronounced it Carlel.
The best book for Cumbrian speech in my opinion isn't a Melvyn Bragg but"Quartered safe out here".,By George Fraser of Flashman fame. It is about the Boarder regiment fighting in Burma during WW2. It has a glossary of translations in the back.
If your so local you might realise where my username comes from. My father said it was what they were called in the forces during the war. He always maintained it didn't matter how tired they were or where they had come from when the train went through Shap all the Cumbrians woke up they could smell the air and knew next stop Carlisle loap oout.