Skip to main content

"I'm a Cock-er-ney."


I used to think I spoke with an English accent, until I heard Daphne’s brother Simon in Frasier. Now, I question my own voice, nationality and basic knowledge of British dialects.

What confuses me most is that Jane Leeves’ character is meant to be from up North, yet Simon speaks with a broad, inaccurate Cockney accent. He sounds like Dick Van Dyke’s Bert on acid. Stephen Hawking’s speech synthesiser emits a more convincing British twang than Anthony LaPaglia in Frasier, and it’s not even trying to. Even Speak & Spell did it better.

LaPaglia isn’t the only brother guilty of a pronunciation-based crime. Robbie Coltrane and Richard E Grant are just as inconsistent. Everyone seems to be aiming for a different region, which suggests Daphne’s parents moved up and down the country with alarming frequency. It can’t have been good for the children’s schooling.

I guess it’s just a reflection on its intended audience. A lot of Americans probably wouldn’t notice the difference. This is often the case when the US depicts the UK. Take Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. At one point, Costner and Freeman travel from Nottingham to Dover via Hadrian’s Wall. Either they wanted to take the scenic route, or they were awful map-readers.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...
Read more

Comedy That's Worth a Letch.

Today, I nipped to Letchworth to meet with illustrator (and one-time - two-time - comedy poet) Mushybees, to discuss an event Mostly Comedy will act as surrogate parents to as part of Letchworth’s Arts Takeover in a couple of weeks. Months ago he got into contact to see if we’d be up for co-organising a comedy stage as part of Letchworth’s weekend of arts-based attractions in July; something I’d provisionally said yes to, before things got hectic in the lead-up to Edinburgh and we didn’t take it any further. Despite not getting down to the nitty-gritty straight away, we managed to pull a line-up together in a back-and-forth of emails yesterday, leading to me getting Glyn’s blessing and us deciding we’d officially go ahead with it (whatever ‘officially’ means in this context). In reality, it’s not complicated: from 12pm until 6pm-ish on the 22 nd July, Glyn, Mushybees and I will host four Edinburgh previews from four acts (including me), before Nor...
Read more

"Heh Heh Heh Helection Half Hour."

Thursday morning’s a time I look forward to, as the episode of Hancock’s Half Hour that was broadcast that week becomes available to listen to on iPlayer, and consequently becomes the soundtrack to my bath. Today was no different, with this week’s instalment being the frighteningly appropriate ‘The Election Candidate'. In the episode, Tony is convinced to stand for parliament as a celebrity candidate (*cough* Donald Trump *cough*) and while it’s definitely one of the best - though let’s face it, pretty much all programmes that exist have stood the test of time wonderfully - my favourite moment has to be when Hancock is asked who’ll he’ll vote for, before he’s convinced to through his own hat in the ring. “Neither of them,” he replies. “I shall show my contempt by going down to the polling booth, taking my form, crossing both their names out and writing ‘get knotted’ in”. (Some things never change.) The episode was first broadcas...
Read more