Monday, May 26, 2008

British Survey About Bad American Accents Cites D.V.D.

This came in today via Google alerts.

Michelle Ryan 'has worst US accent'

Michelle Ryan's turn as the Bionic Woman has won her top place in a poll of the worst attempts at US accents.

The former EastEnder, 24, starred as Jaime Sommers in last year's remake of the 1970s cult series before it was cancelled because of the US writers' strike.

Eddie Izzard made second place for his role as Wayne Malloy in The Riches.

Anna Friel was next for her performance as Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, who comes back from the dead in Pushing Daisies.

Fourth place went to Hugh Laurie in his Golden Globe-winning role as Dr Gregory House in House.


Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot?! Hugh Laurie's accent fools most Americans!

Lancashire-born Ian McShane is next for his role as Al Swearengen in Deadwood.

The top 10 was completed by Essex-born Sean Maguire in The Class, Minnie Driver in The Riches, Joely Richardson in Nip/Tuck, Louise Lombard in CSI; Crime Scene Investigation, and Dominic West in crime drama The Wire.

Helen Hackworthy, the editor of RadioTimes.com, which carried out the poll, said: "Just as Dick Van Dyke struggled with his English accent in Mary Poppins, so too are some Brits failing to pull off convincing American accents."

Just over 3,000 fans were polled on the Radio Times website.


I really like this story; Brits polled Brits to see who does the worst American accent, and then used it as an excuse to complain about Dick Van Dyke's cockney! Wow!


Time elapsed since premiere of Mary Poppins:

15,9677 days

Time elapsed since someone mentioned D.V.D.'s accent:

5 days

1 comment:

Scott said...

Hi everyone. Looks like I'm reader #3.

I really like the idea of this Brit on Brit survey too. It's nice to see them pointing a finger at themselves regarding bad onscreen accents, but then, ultimately, they can't leave the blame on themselves in the public eye, so instead they play the D.v.D. card and point the finger back at Dick instead. It's like they have an inexhaustible "get out of jail free' card.