To read The Tiger Who Came to Tea in a very posh voice

[TheChristmasCountessOlenska]

It just comes out! Mummy is like Celia Johnson and Daddy is like Trevor Howard from Brief Encounter.

The Tiger is a very posh gay man (can't think who that would be, maybe Oscar Wilde??)

My tiger is more of a Ray Winstone, gruff cockney with a hint of menace. Got to make it a bit edgy.

I'm another one who reads in a posh accent. It irritates dh. I don't know why I do it.

Deffo Tiger is Leslie Phillips...

Me too!

And the tiger is indeed Leslie phillips :o

Have you noticed how camp Daddy is? Look at the page when he comes home?

Always posh here, in a sort of BBC home service kind of way.

Does anyone else think that the appearance of the tiger is just made up by mummy because she cba to cook dinner and bath Sophie? I think the cat in the street when they go out is a clue...

I love earwigging on DP reading to DS as he has a deep and commanding voice and tends to read everything in the manner of Alec Guinness.

He is well spoken (from the New Forest) but it's completely accidental and hugely amusing to a common-as-muck Northerner like me.

However I do inject the tiger with a touch of Brian Blessed myself...strange that.

He is totally sarcastic. Look at his face when mummy is frantically telling him what happened. I laugh so often when I read that page that DD giggles now too and has no idea why.

The woman from A Squash and a Squeeze has a really, really Welsh accent in our house.

All Tigers should sound like Shere Khan. End of :o

OK. The fox in the gruffalo is Lesley philips, the Owl is Felicity Kendall and the snake is James Mason playing a Nazi.

motherofsnortpigs my DH reckons that the mum has MH issues and that Sophie has created the Tiger as a way of dealing with her mum's compulsive eating and erratic behaviour.

Ditto the cat in the street.

The snake says "come unt have tea in my log pile housssse" in the exact same way as James Mason saying "round sem up unt take sem to ze interrigation room"

Yes yes yes. we reckonDaddy is a senior civil servant - and loves slumming it in the local caff.

We've just found Tiger who came to tea in the local charity shop on tape (really old car with tape player). I'm vindicated. They are also all really posh according to Geraldine McEwan who is reading it.

Mog's family don't come out half as posh, oddly.

Yes, yes to all of this.

In our house, all Beatrix Potter must be read in cut-glass RP voice - no idea why. And thank God DS is now reading Enid Blyton to himself, because there is no way to read 'I say, food really does taste better out of doors said George' without sounding like Penelope Keith on helium.

I'm originally from Gloucestershire, which tends to come out when reading Gruffalo and also Owl Babies, but nothing else. Odd.

Cinnamon Star - I do mockney accents for Alfie and Annie Rose, as in one story there is a bus to Willesden......

And don't get me started on Winnie the Pooh. DH's Kanga seriously sounds like Dame Edna.

Loving this thread!

The tiger that came to tea is always read in the manner of a 1950's BBC newsreader, very posh queen's English - the Tiger is Kenneth Williams and we reckon Daddy works for MI5!

OK, finally I get to test this theory.

The tiger is feminism. It explodes into the house, eats all the supper so that they have to go out and not, you know, cook it themselves, the mother is scared, Sophie is like 'cool, I like this feminism thing it means you get to eat chips and not drink orange squash and why isn't mummy allowed any beer by the way?'. So she buys the tiger food and then becomes an actual second wave feminist (in the sequel). But the mother says no, no to the feminism, I'm scared of the feminism and goes back to making the tea and drinking the bathwater.

ALSO my mother's wedding china is the exact same as the china in the book. Spooky. And I'm a feminist and my mother is not. haha! QED.

Insy winsy spider was always Liverpudlian!

Has anyone seen the play of the Tiger Who Came to Tea currently at the Warwick Arts Center?

Mm Wilson. Interesting theory. I like my DH's though. So much simpler!

So FolkGirl mummy has made supper, eaten all of it (and every cake and biscuit in the house)? Now I'm wondering whether mummy drinks the beer or pours it down the sink in a frenzy. I'm beginning to feel sorry for Sophie.

Wilson I like your thinking, although I'm concerned the crockery thing has got to you...

Folk I read that book a lot, hence time to develop more complex theories... don't get me started on The Chimpanzees of Happytown.

mother will no-one think of the crockery!!

DH reads Where the Wild Things Are as Richard Burton. He didn't realise he was doing it until I pointed it out.

DH reads Where the Wild Things Are as Richard Burton. He didn't realise he was doing it until I pointed it out.