When Crowley speaks, how would you characterize David Tennant’s accent?
Hellish. With an overlay of Yorkshire.
Yorkshire? doesn’t seem right.
Hell? obviously!
Well, I’m no expert but I think he clearly spent a lot of time roaming the Stygian Wastes. But if you listen closely, from time to time you can hear the echo of his original home in the Blessed Halls of Elysium - before he fell into Hell obviously.
I’d characterize it as “Southern Bastard” (as opposed to “Southern Pansy”)
More seriously, it’s a lower-class London-ish accent.
Definitely not Yorkshire.
It seemed to me to be a generic “dissolute English rockstar” accent. Jagger, Richards, maybe Bowie influences?
It seemed to me to be a generic “dissolute English rockstar” accent. Jagger, Richards, maybe Bowie influences?
yes, for sure. that mumbley talk.
hmmm, yet not at all East End.
he clenches his teeth a lot, kind of like Thurston Howell the Third, you know? like a layer of posh or something.
interesting mix, anyway. this is such a useless detail to wonder about I’m surprised there isn’t more info on the internet about it.
No, nothing of that kidney.
But the teeth-clenching doesn’t read as posh, to me. More like “Druggy” - bruxism is very much something I associate with both coke and speed.
He uses a similar accent to the one he used as the Tenth Doctor. Somebody once told me that was Estuary English.
Here’s a video with a Ten cosplayer explaining how to do this accent.
Excellent! maybe it is Estuary English, I can’t tell.
thanks for the link 
It’s a very casual posh Received Pronunciation accent.
No, it’s not RP. It slides a little bit too much towards Cockney at times for that. Listento how he says I and him. Estuary (as loose as that classification is) is pretty accurate. He’s at the posher, RP-adjacent side of it, but that’s not RP.
*Aziraphale *has an RP accent (although the Welsh comes out sometimes - listen to him saying “some other way of locating him” in that clip above)
To me it sounds like RP but with a handful of Cockney features. The vowels, vocal quality, etc., sound like dead on RP to me. I also don’t hear any Estuary features. I’d call it an RP speaker trying to sound cool by adopting a few working class peonnncuations. “Posh rock star” is a pretty good description. But I’m no expert. I’m open to being corrected.
I have expressed the wish that they should have let them do their natural accents.
well, whatever it’s called it certainly works.
Even though I am a fan of Doctor Who I never get distracted by Tennant’s performance: I totally believe he is Crowley 100% of the time.
and Micheal Sheen is that good, too. I hope they make a second series.
“RP with Cockney features” *is * basically Estuary.
When I think of Estuary, I think of accents like this
Russell Brand – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynUjo99Gzbk
Amy Winehouse – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPc0PLiRNI
Jamie Oliver – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlK_Q7Torlg
They don’t sound like RP speakers who have adopted some Cockney features. Crowley in “Good Omens” sounds very posh, aside from a few Cockney features.
Yes, they’re from the “Cockney, with some R.P. features” end of the Estuary spectrum (in fact, I’d say Amy Winehouse wasn’t Estuary at all.)
Because it is a spectrum.
Someone like Ricky Gervais is still Estuary but less Cockney.
I dispute the “very” bit, he’s not displaying any of what I think of as the characteristics of really high-end RP.
And you do realise you’re just saying “posh, but with non-posh features”, right?