BBC7 streams Doctor Who radio shows weekdays at 6:00PM London time. They feature Paul McGann (Doctor #8) and I don’t blame the Fox-TV debacle on him, and I don’t blame him for the astonishingly bad American accents in “Invaders From Mars.” (You can still catch the last two segments if you hurry by playing the Monday program.) It’s bad enough that we know how Orson Welles sounded, which may not be nearly as much like The Brain as Maurice LaMarche and Tim Burton may think but that would be better than it is here. It’s the Tough Dames and New York Gangsters that stomp on my suspension of disbelief; the Doctor’s phony science is more believeable.
With all of the Americans who go to England to go into the Thee-ah-tah, you’d think they could easily find some hard-up enough to work for what the Beeb pays.
Turnabout is fair play… you guys gave the world Dick Van Dyke’s godawful accent. I think we can forgive a few Brits trying but not quite sounding like 1930’s American.
The only Brits who can do decent American accents have already gone to LA where they actually get paid for doing them. Whereas the BBC, which uses volunteer actors, has a “no accent ability” closed shop, based on arcane union diversity regulation.
When casting, BBC directors are only allowed to choose between “cowboy”, “southern belle”, and “new yoik gangster”. Particular kudos is awarded if they can all be cast as members of the same family, especially for plays set in the midwest.
It’s too bad those American actors that litter British theaters cannot volunteer. They could probably do Hungarians or Indians, to get around union regulations. A cup of tea and a stale bisquit is all they ask, but that’s probably too much for the BBC.
Doctor Who is followed by Dad’s Army, and that one guy’s Scottish burr is probably what triggered Scotland’s move for independence.
I’ve heard plenty of good American accents from folks from Britain, Australia, and other places where they don’t speak The President’s English*. But I have to admit that some actors do a terrible job of it. Leo McKern, who I loved as Rumpole, would try to do an American (or Canadian) accent by…speaking…very…slowly and thickly. It didn’t work.
What do you think of Hugh Laurie’s American accent here? (YouTube clip from A Bit of Fry & Laurie)
I’m pretty confident that Stephen Fry’s accent is bad, but I’d be interested to hear how Laurie’s compares to the apparently very good one he now does in House.
At first glance I thought the thread title was “Doctor House and the Worst American Accents Ever” and I was prepared to be all OMGWTFn00b!!
With regards to the YouTube clip, I didn’t find Steven Fry’s accent all that terrible. Hugh Laurie’s was decent, but it doesn’t sound a whole lot like House.
Now, the accents during the pirate scene in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life are pretty bad, but it makes it even funnier to me because it makes it all the more obvious that they’re acting out an Englishman’s stereotypical American. (That explanation doesn’t really say what I want it to, but you might get the gist of it)
Hugh Laurie’s American accent has definitely improved over time. In that clip from A Bit of Fry & Laurie, it could be better, but it’s not horrible either, and as Queen of Town said, it’s quite different from how he sounds as House. However, his attempt at an American accent in the future portion of the Blackadder Christmas Carol is downright painful.
Like Queen Of Town said, Stephen Fry’s isn’t horrible. IT’s almost believable (in a Yosemite Sam kind of way), except that he’ll shift slightly into more New Yorkian or Canadian sounds during a supposedly Southern accent. I think Hugh’s actually sounds less believable there, mainly because he doesn’t seem to commit fully - it’s more of a mid-Atlantic accent.
The worse American accents I can think of on British shows are Liberty in Footballers Wives and the friend on NY/LON, the latter case being particularly egregious as there were several actual Americans on the show (including Rashida Jones). According to this interview with the actress who plays Liberty, however, the American accent is supposed to sound somewhat phony. I never got that from watching the show, though.
I think this is completely unfair to Radio 4 plays .
There is a choice between “southern belle” and uncannily British sounding Bostonians for their productions.
They aren’t as bad as the ones in that Doctor Who I linked. What was even more jarring was the number of Britishisms, like “at the CBS,” rather than “at CBS” and companies being plural instead of singular, as in “Campbell Soup pay us to,” rather than “Campbell Soup pays us to.”
Worst fake American accent I ever heard, bar none, was the super-evil boss-lady on “Jekyll” on BBC America. It was so bad, I couldn’t focus on the story at all whenever she was talking, I just kept asking myself “where the hell is she supposed to be from?” I think the actress is Australian, but I’m not sure.
Yes, but those are individuals. In that Doctor Who EVERYBODY, except the Doc, Charlie, and John Houseman is supposed to be American and they ALL have TERRIBLE accents. Not that the real John Houseman’s English accent didn’t sound fake; I wasn’t surprised to find he wasn’t born in England, just educated there.