On Jan 29, 10:03 pm, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > I have to believe that even UK audiences recognize how bad this > is, and I wonder why a show that otherwise seems so dedicated to quality > would do this. Prior to this season I suspected it was part of their > anti-Americanism, and the bad accents (and often, bad acting) helped them > make their point that Americans are assholes. Sarah Caufield went over the > top, even for this (unless it was just their attempt to bend over backwards > and show that they hate Americans in the Obama era as much as in the Bush > era). Or is there some union rule that UK television can not use American > actors?
Based on the shows I've seen in the West End, there's no deeper explanation than, generally, British actors just cannot do American accents. (Even the Americans I know who work over there find their dialects traveling across the pond.) This especially colored (or "coloured," I suppose) a production I saw of David Mamet's "Oleanna." David Suchet had a pretty good dialect, but the woman who played opposite him had some weird Brooklyn/midwestern hick hybrid, which made the character seem unutterably stupid, completely throwing an already-problematic play out of balance. (That said, the dialects in "Enron" were superb.) If nothing else, the word "coffee" -always- trips them up. --Dave Sikula -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
