Dodgy British accents in American programmes

[rugbychick1]

I'm currently recovering from surgery and binge watching "Bones" for the first time. Why do the accents for any British characters all sound the same? Now I've noticed it, why can't I un notice it?

I read somewhere that Giles used to help Spike with his accent, and once Giles left that's when Spike's accent started to slip sometimes.

It really bothered me in The Boys, particularly Karl Urban's accent. Quite often it doesn't matter to the storyline where a particular character comes from, so why not just add in a short backstory that allows them to use their own accent.

It annoys me in audio books too, sometimes I can't listen to them if it's very wrong. I was listening to one where they must have asked the (cut-glass English) narrator if she could do an Irish accent, and to be fair she could do a pretty good Belfast accent, unfortunately all the characters in the book lived in the Dun Laoghaire/South Dublin area. She also pronounced Dun Laoghaire the Irish way (she must have looked up the pronunciation) and called the gardai the 'guard-eye'.

It is irritating when they sound posher than the Queen and imply that England is still like something from the early 1900s.

A scene in Lock and Key infuriated me when an American character tried to tell a British character how the word 'scone' should be pronounced and then insisted that it scones were hard, dry biscuits.

Any accent from the UK. I appreciate it's tough for them to use a regional accent. In "Bones" for example it's an English accent that I don't hear very often and a little fake

Daphne's brother Simon in Frasier is the worst. A mix of Dick Van Dyke Cockernee and Beatles era Scouse. Hideous.

And Dick Van Dyke himself.

I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was incredible in Shakespeare in Love. She sounded English.

I am enjoying it very much despite the dodgy accents! I love Kathy Reichs books anyway, although the TV series is a bit different, the premise is the same as the books and what Reichs does for a living. I could think of worse ways to be recovering from surgery!

That's it, the cut glass accent that's grating

I watched something on Netflix recently, can't remember what it was but had 3 or 4 Aussies & Brits doing American accents with varying degrees of credibility. I've a theory that they're hired on the cheap & get paid less than American actors. Johnny Depp does a pretty good London accent which he learned from Kate Moss's 'Sarf Lunnon' accent apparently.

I’d watched most of the boys first series before I even realised Billy Butcher was supposed to be English, I can’t remember exactly what happened but him being from London became a plot point and I was sat there going, what? What? WTF? 🤣

Karl Urban's accent in The Boys is fucking diabolical!

The new BBC drama ‘Ten Pound Poms’ was ruined a bit for me with the mainly Australian cast doing awful British accents. The depressed woman with the twins was far too posh (again, it’s the cut glass accent thing) and the young ‘cockney’ bad boy was painful to listen to! Conversely, lots of them also did a great job as I presumed they were British until I googled the cast; for instance the posh woman’s abusive husband and Michelle Keegan’s character’s fiancé.

Biscuits in America are what plain scones are in Britain, not the biscuits you can dunk in tea.

They're similar to scones but they aren't the same thing.

DH continued watching Hemlock Grove and he says in season 2 they came up with a story about how Famke’s character had her tongue cut out and reattached, so her accent changed. Purely so she could stop doing that terrible accent! 😂

Leave Dick van Dyke out of this 🤣 I think we should all adopt his accent as out official accent.

At first I thought Spike was Australian from his accent.

David Tennant's English accent is sublime. To my shame, it was years before I realised he was Scottish!

Rose Byrne does a good English accent in Peter Rabbit. Maybe it's easier for Aussies than Americans?

Mmmm...not sure I believe that!

I was going to say the same - I’m looking at you Rupert Grint in Servant, terrible American accent.

Sean Connery did every part he played with a Scottish accent.
As an Egyptian in Highlander
As a Russian in Hunt for Red October.

I have not RTFT yet, but just to say that I have only ever seen one movie or TV show where a non-South African did an authentic South African accent (and like "British" accents, there are many different S African accents, which I think a lot of people don't realise).

They are mostly dire, even when they nearly get it they are always a bit wrong. The only one who got it was Leo de Caprio in Blood Diamonds.

@StillWantingADog oh yes they do! My cousin has the plummiest accent I've ever heard and she's from a solid middle class Hertfordshire town!

I quite like it when Kyle Richards does a British accent to take the piss out of LVP on rhobh.

There are just as many Brit actors who wind up Americans with their shoddy accents.

Even I can tell that Idris Elba, Martin Freeman and Heritage Bandersnatch* are terrible at American.

*with apologies to Charlie Brooker

Talking Scouse drives the yanks insane

Martin compston did a good job of an English accent in Line of Duty that loads of folk didn't realise he's actually Scottish.