As an Irishman, that was my verdict too :- interesting to know that an Oxonian agrees with me.
(Oh btw good luck this afternoon, jjimm).
The Scottish accent was terrible. Almost as bad as Russell Crowe trying to do a northern accent in Robin Hood. Almost.
To some extent, whether the accents are right or not is less impressive than that she’s got them clearly distinguished and can do them back to back. Trying to slip from one accent to another is a true pain in the ass, let alone doing it 20 times in a row without a pause between.
I thought she was doing pretty good until the US accents which were all terrible.
I lived in Ireland for a decade!
Thanks - we got it! 
The Texan bit sounds like Reba McEntire to me.
Yeah, and to this untrained ear, at least, they sound pretty much like what she said they were. I think her goal is less have the perfect accent that will have everyone from that area dumbstruck at how perfect it was and more will an audience of seattlians recognize what accent her character is supposed to have in a play or what have you.
I’d also like all the people whose input so far has consisted of “her blank accent is awful” to post a video of themselves doing 21 different accents and we’ll judge for ourselves your credibility in the accent department.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I’m always amused when British actors attempt American accents and fail miserably. I suppose there are just a lot more American actors making attempts at British accents then Brits attempting American accents, so I’m more used to bad attempts at British accents. I was watching an old Sherlock Holmes tv show on Netflix and there was a great example of this. An actor was supposed to be playing an gangster from Chicago, and the actor decided to use an accent a cowboy would use in a Western. If this wasn’t funny enough, he kept slipping back into an Irish accent. I wonder if the British audience even noticed.
I notice all the time. Most of the “American” accents on the BBC, especially in radio drama, are absolutely appalling. Really, for a national network that exports stuff and broadcasts via the World Service, they need to hire talent with natural accents - it’s not like there’s a shortage of foreign actors over here. It makes me cringe. (Though I’d say your actor wasn’t slipping “back” into an Irish accent, since the Irish accent is very different from what people in the US call a “British” accent. Which is actually an English accent, but incorrectly named.)
Give me a break. If someone publicly says “Hey, everyone, look how great I am at X!” and gives a lackluster performance, they deserve to be judged accordingly. The “I’d like to see you do better” defense is weak tea, even when it comes from someone else.
With the aid of a manual like this one, it takes a few hours of practice to get as good at an accent as this Amy Walker is: good enough to fool most non-locals and non-professionals. Get that good, and you can justify putting that accent on your resume. Keep your ears open for people with that accent and try to discern how they deviate from or adhere to the “manual version” of that accent. When you get an audition that calls for that accent, you dig out your accent manual and brush up as part of your preparation. If you get a paying gig that calls for that accent, you hire a professional dialect coach as part of your preparation; ideally you use your sides when working with the coach so you can focus on more obscure details (such as whether you pronounce “hostile” /ˈhɒstl/ or /ˈhɒstaɪl/).
What you don’t do is get to the basic level with a handful of accents and post a video online in the hopes that a producer or casting director will mistake you for an amazing vocal chameleon and give you your big break. Casting directors often have a better ear than most people for accents, so such a video is likely to do more harm than good unless you’re exceptionally skilled.
Nobody had worse American accents than the Monty Python players when including an American character in their skits. They were every bit as bad as Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent. Your ears would bleed.
I think she did the Sydney one quite well. I certainly know some people who talk that way, although it might not be a standard enunciation.
However, the broad Aussie accent (the location of which she correctly leaves unspecified) is just a caricature.
The Brooklyn one was not good.
I think maybe we are only equipped to judge our own accents. For example, I thought she was doing great with all the different accents until she got to the Southern accents, which were pretty bad. I am guessing people from different places think she is doing a great job on all of the accents but their own.
It is very impressive to watch her switch from one accent to another so rapidly, though. That’s really hard to do.
No it isn’t. It takes work to learn how to do each accent, but once you know them switching between them is very easy.
the Texas one sucked. It’s just off… not merely overdone.
Especially that Terry Gilliam, who does he think he’s fooling?
Seriously, as a Seattlite, I’m convinced this is the only place in the world where we speak English without an accent. Or at least, here we speak like people on TV speak. Every time I hear a guy on TV that isn’t supposed to be from anywhere, he just sounds normal.
It must be weird to be a Southerner or a whatever, and listen to everyone on TV and they’re speaking with an accent. Cause that never happens to me unless I’m watching BBC America.