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Post by wddt on Apr 26, 2009 15:29:23 GMT
Hello and may I first express my appreciation for this wonderful board -- as a long-time Brittas fan, I am overwhelmed by the information available here from the posters. And if I'm covering ground that's already been discussed elsewhere on these threads. please excuse me and chalk it up to my being an ignorant foreigner.
You see, I live just outside of New York City and my exposure to Brittas came via a short-lived run on our local Public Broadcasting System station, long before I was smart enough to think to tape every episode on VHS (which tells you how LONG ago it was too.) The few episodes I DID remember to save, I've watched several times over and loved. ANYWAY, I have a perhaps silly, rather basic question and I hope I've come to the right place for an answer (since the search I ran on the whole board didn't turn up one.)
I had searched on the single word "accent" because I love the accent Chris Barrie has given Mr. Brittas. Coming from the US, I am able to recognize several regional British accents, thanks to a fairly decent ear and people linked to places, ranging from Michael Caine's Bow bells and the Beatles distinct Liverpuddlian to Dave Lister introducing me to a little Scouse. And although I've always wondered about Gordon's dulcet tones (where "Well" becomes something like "Wee-oh") I wouldn't have taken the time to join and ask. But this morning, I ran that same accent again in a surprising place.
Being an anglophile, (oh -- how did you guess?), I was watching a DVD of "Carry On Spying" this morning. Suddenly, here was Kenneth Williams -- way back in 1964 -- replacing his usually precisely-overmodulated "posh" accent with a dead ringer for Gordon Brittas! So now I had to try to find out where these two characters are supposed to be from. Can anyone enlighten me?
Thanks for any information and you can pass along, and again for the boards, which I am now going to continue to peruse at my "leh-zheh".
-- Bill from New York
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Post by crazyfrog86 on Apr 26, 2009 18:44:05 GMT
Hi, sorry I'm utterly crap at recognising accents. But apparently Kenneth Williams was born in King's Cross, London. I don't suppose thats any help cos thats where he was born in real life, not necessairly where his character is suppsoed to be from. But you can find more information about him here on wikipedia, though you've probably already looked at this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_williamsIt talks about his nasal, whiny voice, which I guess is like Brittas ;D Welcome to the board!  P.S. Carry on films are great ;D |
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wddt
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Post by wddt on Apr 26, 2009 21:08:04 GMT
Hi, Crazyfrog86--
Thanks for the welcome and the update. I had looked at Kenneth Williams's bio on Wikipedia but hadn't paid attention to his birthplace. If you're familiar with the Carry On films, you probably remember him as I do -- his characters were usually sort of the out-of-place Person Of Distinction in a more down-to-earth situation (a society toff working for the police department in "Carry On Constable", for example.) His voice WAS extremely nasal, but he seemed to always had that extremely "pear-shaped" accent to match. That's why I thought it unusual for him to go for this completely different accent in "Carry On Spying" -- I just had to figure there was something about their characters that both he and Chris Barrie were trying to convey with that accent. Anyway, thanks again for the recommendation and the link.
WDDT
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Post by sev29 on Apr 27, 2009 9:04:17 GMT
And although I've always wondered about Gordon's dulcet tones (where "Well" becomes something like "Wee-oh") I wouldn't have taken the time to join and ask. But this morning, I ran that same accent again in a surprising place. Being an anglophile, (oh -- how did you guess?), I was watching a DVD of "Carry On Spying" this morning. Suddenly, here was Kenneth Williams -- way back in 1964 -- replacing his usually precisely-overmodulated "posh" accent with a dead ringer for Gordon Brittas! So now I had to try to find out where these two characters are supposed to be from. Can anyone enlighten me? -- Bill from New York I'm from Yorkshire & say my L's as an l, but my other half is from Essex (oh yes!) & he says all his 'l's as 'w', which I think is what you're getting at with Chris Barrie as Gordon Brittas. He says be-w for bell etc, so I'd place Gordon's accent as a sort of Essex one. It's interesting, because he starts off posher, & as the series go on he gets more & more Essex. Oh and Hello & Welcome! |
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Post by wddt on Apr 27, 2009 15:18:37 GMT
Hi, sev29-- Thanks for the input -- very enlightening indeed! I did a little digging on the internet and came up with a YouTube entry described as follows: Naming of Parts, by Henry Reed
Henry Reed's famous war poem is performed here by Christopher Manning as the Soldier with the voice of Henry Reed himself as the Poet.
Manning makes masterly use of his North-East Essex accent in this performance. Listening to Mr. Manning's reading reminds me a bit of Mr. Brittas, though the obviously lower timbre of Manning's voice makes it sound more guttural. In fact, this sounds almost Cockney to me -- am I far wrong? (This reading reminds me, in fact, of yet another of the Carry On crew -- Sid James). Anyway, since none of the other members of the Leisure Center crew seem to speak with the same accent, is there any particular significance attached to Gordon's accent? Does it make a difference in how he's seen if he's from Essex? (Sorry if this seems a silly question to a native English person.) Thanks again for all the interesting inspiration! Bill P.S. Here's the URL of the YouTube video, in case you're interested (it's a lovely, sad, poem, by the way.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqSubQht96A |
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Post by sev29 on Apr 28, 2009 9:53:58 GMT
I'm sure Chris Barrie says something about the accent on the Terry Wogan interview, which you might not have if you don't have the DVD's (it's an extra). If I get chance, I'll watch it again (such a chore!!) & put here what he says. All I can remember is he says something about why he chooses that particular accent for Brittas........ But generally accents have connotations over & above telling you the area people come from (stereotypes).
Don't worry about asking obvious questions - they're not obvious at all, & I think it's great Brittas has some international fans here!
Just out of interest, I used to have a very, very similar accent to Julie (till I moved away & no-one could understand me).
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Post by mikey2001 on Apr 28, 2009 17:15:45 GMT
Did you, or do you now, ever say you are busy?  |
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Post by wddt on Apr 29, 2009 14:56:41 GMT
Hi again-- Thanks, sev, for your offer and you're right, I don't have the DVD's. They've only recently come onto Amazon here in the States, and only in the "international format'. I intend to order the set anyway and see if any of my players do "other regions" but it's a bit pricey (especially if it turns out I need a new DVD player to use them.) So don't make a special effort, but next time you watch the DVD, just see what he says about the accent for me. I fully understand your understated comment about accents having connotations and that was part of what made me curious in the first place. The late (wonderful) Wendy Richard was so good as a "common" store clerk in Are You Being Served and a large part of that was her Cockney accent (or that's how it sounded to me.) Nosing about on the Web, I find a lot of people being categorized by their speech, and not always in the most polite ways. But there are also some interesting sites defending the regional accents. One site, www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html is particularly interesting in that it plays Flash clips of accents from around the Isles. (I thought the ones from Canterbury and Peckham sounded the most like Gordon, but, living there, your ear is probably much better than mine.) Anyway, thanks again for the help! Bill |
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Post by sev29 on Apr 30, 2009 19:15:09 GMT
I'm not sure I'm any better on Southern English accents than you are. I can recognise my other half's, public school (Gavin) & that's pretty much it. I can, however, hear a clear difference between Colin (Lancashire) & Julie (Yorkshire), despite them both being northern, because that's where I grew up. I love it when Laura tells Julie that "there's something you need to understand about us poor southerners" when Julie & her posh southern boyfriend don't understand each other's meaning.
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Post by sev29 on May 1, 2009 13:55:45 GMT
Did you, or do you now, ever say you are busy? Was this an accent question, or do I just spend too much time on here?! |
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Post by mikey2001 on May 1, 2009 22:01:13 GMT
I'm not sure I'm any better on Southern English accents than you are. I can recognise my other half's, public school (Gavin) & that's pretty much it. I can, however, hear a clear difference between Colin (Lancashire) & Julie (Yorkshire), despite them both being northern, because that's where I grew up. I love it when Laura tells Julie that "there's something you need to understand about us poor southerners" when Julie & her posh southern boyfriend don't understand each other's meaning. I always thought Colin had more of a Geordie accent, but maybe that's just me Was this an accent question, or do I just spend too much time on here?! Sorry, this was a reference to you saying you used to sound like Julie |
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Post by wddt on May 2, 2009 13:19:20 GMT
Sorry, Mikey, I'm afraid I'm still a bit too thick to get the connection between sev sounding like Julie and spending too much time on the board (I've TRIED to pick up an accent from just reading and it's not easy!)
As for Mike Burns, I am certainly no judge (that's why I'm here, asking questons) but his admittedly sketchy Wikipedia entry says he is a "York-based actor" -- in contrast, isn't Geordie Tyneside? From what I've read, it sounds like there's some overlap in local accents in general, and I imagine there would be even more amongst professional actors.
Here's an interesting question, though. Is there one phrase someone could say that their pronunciation would tell you right away where they're from? Here's a f'rinstance: I live in a suburb of New York City called New Rochelle (if you're a fan of American TV, it was the home of Rob and Laura Petrie on the old thingy Van d**e show).[Wait a minute -- the blooming board is censoring the name of that TV show just because the star's name is a variant of Richard and his last name includes one of the structures that keeps the water back in Holland! Coo!, as Gordon would say!] Anyway, New Rochelle accents vary a bit from slightly "Bronx" to the "normal" sort of American East Coast accent the news readers have. One way to ALWAYS tell if someone was raised in New Rochelle, though, is to ask them to say the name of the city itself. People from here always pronounce it sorta like "nuraSHELL" or even "nurSHELL". My wife, who is originally from Long Island, pronounces it "Neuroshell", which is better, actually, and, of course, the news readers would like us to pronounce it "Nyoo Rohshell". Any thoughts on specific words or phrases that might serve similarly to place Gordon's accent?
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Post by Elf on May 3, 2009 19:22:45 GMT
Sorry, Mikey, I'm afraid I'm still a bit too thick to get the connection between sev sounding like Julie and spending too much time on the board (I've TRIED to pick up an accent from just reading and it's not easy!) It was because Julie always says 'I'm Busy!' to Brittas' every request. I think a lot of what gives away where a person is from is their dialect, as well as their accent. For instance, I was born in the Westcountry - and whilst I do sound quite Westcountry when I get excited/tired, because I now live and work in the South East, I have a certain London/Mockney twang. However, my dialect is still pretty much all Westcountry, unless I'm purposefully taking the piss out of my workmates or other natives to this area I think it would be very hard to pinpoint Gordon's accent because Chris Barrie has taken lots of different aspects of people to create it (he does an amazing impression of Kenneth Williams!) so because it's not a 'real' accent, I doubt anyone could really say exactly where it's from. However, I'm sure people can pick out certain aspects of it coming from certain places. Elf xx |
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Post by sev29 on May 5, 2009 9:13:51 GMT
Was this an accent question, or do I just spend too much time on here?! Sorry, this was a reference to you saying you used to sound like Julie D'you know, I'm a bit thick sometimes....... I think I ought to try out saying it in just that petulant tone Julie uses. |
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Post by mikey2001 on May 5, 2009 21:20:25 GMT
Bill, in reference to your post above - the only words I can think of are ones such as 'bath'. For example, I say 'bath' how it is spelt, whereas someone from the south of England (or more specifically south-east) would say 'barth'. Of course I am generalising here, but I used to wind up my old Biology teacher asking him where he came from when he actually did come from Bath (or according to him, Barth)!  |
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