Lister in Red Dwarf obviously is his century’s equivalent of a working-class Brit. But what is that dialect of English he speaks? It’s not cockney, I’m sure . . . is it Welsh? Or something from the industrial cities of northern England?
IIRC, it’s from Liverpool.
Liverpool? He doesn’t talk one little bit like the Beatles.
On the DVDs, he refers to himself and the director refers to him as a Scouser.
Rasta-Billy?
Liverpudlians are colloquially known as Scousers. Its semi-derogatory.
Lister/Craig Charles is definitively a Scouse.
No, he doesn’t talk like the Beatles, his accent is pure blue-collar working class Northerner. The kind of bloke that goes to Anfield every weekend to watch footy, eat a meat pie then either celebrate or commiserate over several pints afterward.
There are several accents among people from Liverpool. That’s where I’m from but I don’t sound like Craig Charles.
There’s no such thing. If you can’t tell the difference between the accent of a blue-collar working class person from Liverpool or one from Manchester or from Bolton or Doncaster or Middlesbrough or Newcastle or Carlisle etc. etc. you can’t distinguish accents at all. Naturally it’s easier to tell people apart if they’re from your own part of the world, but “working class Northerner” makes no more sense than “working class American” as far as accents are concerned.
I can tell the difference fine, thanks, since I’m from the region. And the working classes from the British North all have similar dialectic nuances whether you’re Scouse, Mank or Geordie. Its a class-defining pattern of speech which leads people to the “Northern Accent” description, or if they’re from London, “Filthy Northern Animal.”
The OP has already observed that Craig Charles doesn’t sound much like the Beatles. He wants Charles’ accent to be identified, so suggesting that he has a non-existent generic accent isn’t much help to him is it?
If somebody had already identified from his accent that a certain actor is from either Georgia or South Carolina and wants to know which, he doesn’t need to be told “it’s Southern” or that there are some similarities in speech patterns between people from Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee or wherever.
So to answer the OP directly, Charles’ accent is blue-collar working class Liverpool, or Scouse if you prefer.
Some people from North Wales do have an accent which is similar to a Liverpool one, so your guess was pretty close, and FWIW there are some points of contact between Charles’ accent and those of blue-collar individuals from some other northern cities.
Proof that the character, at least, is from Liverpool can be found in the episode Thanks For The Memory in Series II. After receiving an implant of Lister’s memories of Lise Yates, Rimmer himself says it was a crazy summer: one minute he was in school, the next he found himself in Liverpool.
FISH
As Everton points out Liverpool has a myriad of accents - just like London does. Assuming that everyone from Liverpool speaks the same way would be like assuming everyone in New York speaks the same way.
Lister is definitely what i’d call a “Scouser” but i’d probably not describe the beatles as such.
We are a bit more specific these days - they are “Filthy Northern Monkeys”
Garius
Southern Nancy-boy
I work with a Nurse that sounds just like Lister. She wasn’t happy when I pointed it out :).
Quoting Jack
"And the working classes from the British North all have similar dialectic nuances whether you’re Scouse, Mank or Geordie. "
I live in Manchester, UK and I have to reassure Jack Sarang that ‘rough’ or working class people from Manchester sound absloutely nothing like working class people from Liverpool or Newcastle, theres not just a minor difference. Mancunians usually imitate Scouse accents and Geordie ones. They are very different.
Watch Biker Grove and then watch The Royle Family and then Brookside and tell me the characters in these sound the same.
And for the record, when you refer to ‘dialect’ I prefer you mean ‘accent’ as the two are totally different. I assume you mean accent because theres no way in hell that we use the same words and colloquialisms as those in Liverpool and Nezcastle.
When was the last time you heard anyone in Manchester or Newcastle cal the Police the ‘busies’ or the hospital the ‘ozzie’ as a lot of people in Liverpool do.