Amy Walker is bloody brilliant -- she got most of those close enough to right as to make no difference.
What makes the difference for me with English accents, is class. There's a film of Henry VIII made in 2003 with Ray Winstone as Henry. While it's not bad as these things go (and certainly not nearly as bad as The Tudors!) what completely wrecked it for me was Winstone's obviously working class accent.
The other thing is obviously wrong regional accents. Sean Bean plays Sharpe in the 17 or so made for TV movies of the books by Bernard Cornwell. He does a pretty good job except for one thing: he's got a Yorkshire accent. In the books, Sharpe's from London. Later books have him leaving London during his childhood and living in Yorkshire (to match the movies I presume) but that wouldn't have given him a pure Yorkshire accent.
My accent is middle class southern England overlaid with British Public School/BBC English which has been corrupted by 10 years in South London, 6 years in the Middle East and 20 years in the US -- almost 21 years now.
On my last trip back to England, people thought I was American. Americans however, think my English accent is "cute".
I suspect also that it's not how you say it, it's what you say. "Wicked pissah" doesn't work in an upper class English accent. Nor does "y'all" in a French Canadian one (sort of "y'awl-eh"). I sound American to English ears, as much because of my choice of vernacular as my corrupted accent.
But I can still do a wicked pissah British Raj command voice when needed :)
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Date: 2009-06-11 01:53 pm (UTC)Amy Walker is bloody brilliant -- she got most of those close enough to right as to make no difference.
What makes the difference for me with English accents, is class. There's a film of Henry VIII made in 2003 with Ray Winstone as Henry. While it's not bad as these things go (and certainly not nearly as bad as The Tudors!) what completely wrecked it for me was Winstone's obviously working class accent.
The other thing is obviously wrong regional accents. Sean Bean plays Sharpe in the 17 or so made for TV movies of the books by Bernard Cornwell. He does a pretty good job except for one thing: he's got a Yorkshire accent. In the books, Sharpe's from London. Later books have him leaving London during his childhood and living in Yorkshire (to match the movies I presume) but that wouldn't have given him a pure Yorkshire accent.
My accent is middle class southern England overlaid with British Public School/BBC English which has been corrupted by 10 years in South London, 6 years in the Middle East and 20 years in the US -- almost 21 years now.
On my last trip back to England, people thought I was American. Americans however, think my English accent is "cute".
I suspect also that it's not how you say it, it's what you say. "Wicked pissah" doesn't work in an upper class English accent. Nor does "y'all" in a French Canadian one (sort of "y'awl-eh"). I sound American to English ears, as much because of my choice of vernacular as my corrupted accent.
But I can still do a wicked pissah British Raj command voice when needed :)