A Question for the Brits here…

@TheSirfurryanimalWales Years ago, I was in a community theater production of "Dial M for Murder." (I was the police inspector.) The cast consisted entirely of Americans, and we worked on developing British accents (except for the guy who played the one American character in the show.) We were convincing enough for an American audience, but I had no delusions about how authentic we were.

I prepared for this by listening intently to BBC radio every night so I could imitate what I heard. I soon came to realize the very thing that you have just said: there are lots of different British accents, even within England. But I figured my job was to sound "as different from an American as possible" rather than trying to sound consistent .

So, in the course of delivering a single line, I probably moved from London to Liverpool to Cornwall. I did realize that that is what I would have sounded like, but who in the audience would know? (And if anyone came who really was knowledgeable about British accents, nothing I tried to do would have been convincing anyway!)

Cheerio!

@TheSirfurryanimalWales Possibly it’s what’s left of the accent Brits retain when they’ve lived here for awhile ?

@DrWatson @bijouxbroussard Perhaps...but I notice British-including Welsh actors-who ply their trade in America sound nothing like British to me!
Here at the moment our Welsh language soap opera-Pobol y Cwm-has a storyline which sees the actors have to speak English in certain scenes.
I would say the actors sound totally different speaking English to how they sound speaking Welsh.
Kevin Mcidd -who is Scottish and in Grays Anatomy -sounds nothing like Scottish in that.
But in a recent Scottish drama he appeared in his natural accent was to the fore.
I know what Americans are referring to when they think of a British accent.
I think that is a stereotype and I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who speaks like that.

@TheSirfurryanimalWales Occasionally they’re working with expats as coaches, which is why I wondered. I have one friend in particular who moved here from Kent in around 1991 to marry someone from the U.S. Over thirty years later, she still has an accent. Her daughter, born here, sounds totally like someone from the U.S. even though she was raised by a Brit.

@TheSirfurryanimalWales Interesting.

For the flip side of this, many years ago I watched a few minutes of an old black and white British movie whose name I have forgotten.

I watched one scene in which some American characters show up. The British actors did not even attempt an American accent. Instead, they "acted like Americans" by talking out of the sides of their mouths! 😂

@bijouxbroussard in the latter series of Friends a British actress was thrown into the mix.
Can't for the life of me think of her name but she sounded totally different to the regular cast.
She also appeared in a British hospital drama-and sounded like everyone else in it!
Helen Baxendale....and she didn't alter her accent in Friends.
Think the hospital drama was called Heart Attack.

@bijouxbroussard Dick Van Dyke still gets razzed about his Cockney accent in Mary Poppins.

I saw him on a talk show a few years ago, where he explained that he was given an Irish voice coach, who assured him, "This is how they say it!" 😂

@DrWatson most people in London don't speak like this
[media=https://youtu.be/s11qjmvTdJ8]

@TheSirfurryanimalWales Actually, while that sounds to me like an authentic British accent, it sounds somewhat different from my impression of "London English".