Do you get wound up by actors doing your accent wrongly?

[Pruni]

I only ask because I was watching Ivor the Engine today and thought some of the Welsh accents sounded pretty dodge.

I am Scottish and it never fails to amaze me how many actors (and good ones at that) think they can get away with the crappy offerings that are their Scottish accents.

Really winds me up. Let's name and shame.

An Irish pal of mine said she's only heard two non-Irish actors do an Irish accent well. One is Daniel Day-Lewis; the other is a young Scots actor who was in 'Inside I'm Dancing'. But he's really a weegie. :o

Ronniebaby, I believe I'm right in thinking that a brummie accent is pure sex whereas the black country accent is - er - not?

(first snog with a boy from Walsall, he was HOT)

to be fait though - there are so many different accents in this country they don't have ahope of getting any given one right ! In Norfolk I can recognise at least 5 different regional variations - and I am not even a local.

I hate the generalisations - there is not one Sccottish, or Irish, or Welsh, or Yorksire, or whatever accent - there are many of them.

oops - fair not fait !

the worst one for me was when corrie had cilla and les going to north wales and all the locals spoke with over done south walian accents...grrr!
people dont seem to realise that there is a difference between north walian and south walian accent, and i hate all that "boyo" stuff, makes us sound like morons!

But real scottish accents are bloody impossible to understand - so that might be why they don't use scots!

I grew up in Norfolk, and I couldn't identify 5 regional variations, but I can think of three in the bit nearest where I lived, so def agree with that.

Personally I actually find most accents annoying, and I think most actors would be better off not trying rather than butchering one.

But i could say that i find a real geordie or scouse accent difficult to understand. Which i do, ask my neighbour, we spend all our time asking each other to repeat what we were saying!

I don't know about Mel Gibson's Scottish accent (was that what you were referring to Pruni?) but I always stand in awe of his amazing English accent when he is called upon to do one.

But I came on to complain about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Far and Away but I find Mhamai has beaten me to it. Their attempts at Irish make Dick van Dyke sound like a genuine Cockney in comparison!

C'mon, NO ONE is as bad as Chris O'Donnell trying to put on an Irish accent. That was just painful. I couldn't watch.

this is slightly different but i am portuguese and some time ago there was a guy on 24 (the baddie taken out of prison) played by a portuguese actor pretending to be mexican - it was awful nd am sure offended plenty of spanish speakers.so wrong!
likewise when they employ spanish actors to play brasilians and it is all so wrong i can't watch

Mhamai beat me to it with tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. I thought Brad Pitts traveller accent was good though! But don't know many travellers so that knocks my opinion on the head.

Expat - doesn't Daniel Day-Lewis have Irish connections though or was brought up there or something? I read somewhere that he really goes in for method acting to the extreme, so he probably moved there for years to get the accent right!!

I mentioned further down that Jane in Eastenders is Scottish. Can any cock-e-ney's out there tell me if her accent is any good??

back to mrs b & prunis earlier point - really winds me up when english actors/characters use americanisms but i love how Parminder Nagra in ER uses very british swear words. i'm sure many americans have no idea what a w is!

dont wath eastenders any more sorry mawbroon, but i do get very wound up by actresses like those who play pat and dot being so very well spoken in 'real' life! think this is probably quite unreasonable though!

Yes but throckenholt, whilst they may not be able to be spot on with precisely the right accent for their character, they don't have to be quite so spectacularly way-off, do they? That's the point. Most of them are just poor.

My friend is an actress, at the top of her cv is a list of accents she can do. She is vv specific: can do Morningside Scots, no other. (She really can do it, too.) Mel Gibson I am sure is not quite so precise.

Wanker appeared in the Simpsons once! I could not believe my ears.

Of course the very very Top Trump goes to
Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, the benchmark of bad acents

sean bean as Lady Chatterley's Lover

i mean he only comes from about ten miles up the road not much of a leap
still his appeal is mainly visual i think

Yes it is, HC, yes it is.
Also the deep tones of his gorgeous voice.
And his thighs in those breeches.

Gwyneth Paltrow does a reaaly good English accent in Emma and Sliding Doors imho
dh thought she was British
doesn't excuse her unforgivable dullness, mind

Yes she's technically good
But phonetically accurate rather than socially interesting
I couldn't work out anything about her background from her accent - she was past-less
I though Zellweger was much better from that pov even if she lapsed a bit occasionally.

Of course maybe GP is just a crap actress

I agree Pruni - if they are going to try and do one then they should at least be accurate.

One I find particularly annoying is the generic "rural" accent used ubiquitously (sp ?) for anyone who comes from a rural area from Cornwall right up until you hit the "northern" accent.

Not all Scots accents are incomprehensible: I have just had a conversation with an English cusomter of mine and he was complaining about one fo the people that we mutually have to deal with, who is broad Glaswegian - and he specifically said, "I can understand you! - but I can only understadn every third word that xxx says".

But the difference is that I am "posh" Glaswegian

I can understand most Scots accents - but the Dundee one defeated me - for the 6 motnhs I lived there I rarely understood what the locals were saying - particularly the cleaner