Would-Be Romance Novelists Are Just as Snooty as Dick Van Dyke

The Guardian, February 9, 2008, "The Great Escape," by Kathryn Hughes

The publisher "Mills & Boon" is apparently the equivalent of "Harlequin Romance" in the States. Kathryn Hughes tried to write something for them, but she couldn't hide her contempt for the form, and M & B declined to publish it.

The would-be author pack was welcoming but realistic. Everyone thinks they can knock off a Mills & Boon, but it's harder than it looks. The really important thing, said the bumph sternly, was not to condescend to your readers. Clearly, the company had grown weary of submissions from smarty-pants who attempted to ventriloquise a mass-market fiction voice while failing to disguise that they felt it a bit beneath them, rather like Dick Van Dyke doing cockney.

I don't get even a hint from D.V.D.'s performance in Mary Poppins that he felt it was all a bit beneath him. He had a ball working on that movie; he just didn't know how to do a cockney accent. You know, when you ask an actor if he can ride a horse, he says "Yes" even if he can't.

Wouldn't it be a truly subtle performance if he had been hired to play a cockney, then they did it with contempt, managed to slip that past not only Walt Disney but also everyone who had seen it in theaters and on video for 40 years, and the first and only person to pick up on it was Kathryn Hughes in the Guardian?


Time elapsed since premiere of Mary Poppins:

15,8568 days.

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

6 days

Scottish Actors and American Producers Agree on Bad English Accents: "No One Cares."

Scotland on Sunday, February 3, 2008, "How Hitler conquered America. PROFILE: CRAIG FERGUSON"

His introduction to American TV wasn't as auspicious as he'd hoped, however. He was down to his last 29 cents when he got work on a sitcom starring Marie Osmond, which was quickly cancelled. But a year later he landed a role on another half-hour comedy called The Drew Carey Show, playing an unpleasant boss with an English accent that would bring a tear to the eye of Dick Van Dyke.

"They said that my character was an obnoxious idiot, so I said: 'Right, we'll make him English,'" noted Ferguson. "I did say it was a very bad accent, but the producer said: 'Ah, no one cares.' Anyway, I've watched English actors doing duff Scottish accents for years."

Time elapsed since premiere of Mary Poppins:

15,8562 days.

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

6 days

****


Another mention of D.V.D. I've put off posting for a few days, because it wasn't really a media mention, just something in an online catalog.

Pearly King Cushions



Lots of places sell cushions decorated with the union jack motif, but these cushions are the first I’ve seen to celebrate this specific bit of English heritage, the cockney tradition of the Pearly King and Queen.

The Pearly King Cushions from Re-Found Objects are black square cushions decorated with hand-sewn pearl buttons. Available in two designs, Anchor or Good Luck, both are inspired by popular Pearly King costume designs.

Put aside memories of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and buy your own piece of East End tradition. They cost £55 each and can be bought online from Re-Found Objects.

Apparently, English people can't think of black cushions decorated with pearl buttons without blurting out D.V.D.'s name. It's a very specific form of Tourette's: "Cushions! Buttons! Dick Van Dyke!"

An American Replies: "Pensioners Who Wear Red? Huh?"

Newbury Today, January 28, 2008, "If you don't mind the blood, you will not regret the trip to see Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street", by Mike Beharrell

"It is small wonder that American tourists are reportedly staying away from good old London town, what with its reputation for fires, plagues, rippers, and cabbies who are experts on their home-country politics. There is evidence that some Americans still think that London is populated by Beefeaters, pensioners who wear red and live in Chelsea, and chimney sweeps who say things like ‘Luv a duck’ and ‘Gor blimey’ in a Dick van Dyke sort of way."

I defy you to find any Americans who know the part of London where the pensioners who wear red reside. In fact, I'm quite the Anglophile and I had no idea what this wearing red business meant until I googled it and found this.

Time elapsed since premiere of Mary Poppins:

15,856 days.

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

3 days

Cockney Envy

The News (Portsmouth), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, January 25, 2008

Johnny Depp's singing voice is good enough – although he sounds uncannily like David Bowie on his Sixties novelty single The Laughing Gnome. Just as he does in his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates Of The Caribbean, Depp adopts a cod cockney accent Dick Van Dyke would be envious of.

Wouldn't a cockney accent D.V.D. would envy be an accurate cockney accent? He wouldn't envy one worse than his own, would he? Why is it that every time someone drops an "H", regardless of how well they do it, the reviewers all mention D.V.D.?

I do like the term "cod cockney", though. That's new to me.


****

I do want to mention two of the Google ads that popped up when this item came through the Gmail virtual transom:

English Accent Reduction
Personal Accent Reduction Coach In Silicon Valley. Request Free Tips!

Learn a British Accent
Master a British accent in 15 min a day. Start Your Lessons Right Now!

Either would be a perfect birthday gift for Madonna.


Time elapsed since premiere of Mary Poppins:

15,853 days.

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

2 days

More Tales of Everyday Madness

Celeb Grapevine, In the News, January 22, 2008

It might not have been a proper British accent, but at least it was Britney.

However she's at least picked up something from Ghalib - a dodgy British accent. After finally showing up to a deposition in her custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline, Britney responded to questions about Ghalib in an accent straight out of the Dick van Dyke school, saying: "I don't know who that is… I have never met him before."

Time elapsed since premiere of Mary Poppins:

15,851 days.

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

7 days

A Reference to a Reference to D.V.D.'s Accent

At last, someone else who recognizes the Dick Van Dyke reference as a cliche!

Digital Spy, Tuesday, January 15 2008, "A trifle uncool" by Dek Hogan

"Nothing on offer here then to trouble Friday Night with Jonathan Ross where typewriter-collecting Tom Hanks came across as a typically ill-informed American tourist. We were taking bets about whether there would be a Dick Van Dyke reference, so shockingly bad were Hanks's attempts at British accents. Sure enough we got one."

Also today... and seeing as we've heard about this movie before, I suspect we will again...

Irish Voice, January 16, 2008, "This Dream Is A Nightmare"

"There’s so much to lament about Cassandra’s Dream that it’s difficult to know where to start. First of all there’s the casting. Ewan McGregor, a Scotsman, and Colin Farrell, an Irishman, play two working class Londoners with the kind of Dick Van Dyke gawd bless you gov’ner accents that sometimes make you wonder if they’re being ironic."

Time elapsed since premiere of Mary Poppins:

15,844 days.

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

5 days

D.V.D. as Ironic Champion of Londoners

Class snobbery in England cuts both ways. Today's mention of D.V.D. comes in the form of someone fantasizing about visiting Cambridge University and exaggerating his own lower-class accent just to annoy the stuffed shirts. "So, whatcha fink of me London accent as angry, ironic blackface?"

The Guardian, January 11th, 2008, "All change at the top", Joe Baden

"I was ready to go to Cambridge, class on my sleeve, Bermondsey accent to the fore with verbal knuckle duster at the ready, or perhaps dressed as Dick Van Dyke from the film Mary Poppins giving an ironic rendition of "de ole bamboo"."

The Mary Poppins costume and that song would be a double-whammy, seeing as D.V.D. sang it in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And it's called "Me Old Bamboo". Two bonus points.

Time elapsed since premiere of Mary Poppins:

15,839 days.

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

2 days