How to torture English people

I auditioned on Thursday for Round and Round the Garden and, as it's an English comedy, English accents are required. Clare was being kind enough to run the auditions and Clare is English, so she was trapped in a room listening to Americans bringing out their very best "I grew up watching Monty Pyton and I love Ab Fab" attempts to sound English. We ranged from very, very horrible to not all that bad to pretty good. And the director was wise enough to say that he was more interested in acting choices than in vowel sounds, so if maintaining an accent this early on was an issue, just don't worry about it.

Years ago I auditioned for another English accent required show. I could either act or maintain what I thought sounded like an English accent. And even then, it wandered all over Great Britian and up and down the American Atlantic coast. I vowed to improve. So I listen careful to any one I meet (or hear on the radio) whose accent differs from mine. Sometimes I don't remember what they said, just that the word "combatent" got pronounced "COM-ba-tent" instead of "com-BAT-ent."

And I got better. I'm still not great, but on a 1 - 10 scale, I'd give myself a 6: I miss the most obvious traps, but I'm not fooling anyone who actually has the Queen on their money. And my accent isn't specifically located, i.e., it's not Nottingham or Cambridge, or what-have-you. I basically just go for clear vowels and short consonents. And if I'm ever cast in something that requires a very specific accent, I'll beg a boon from one of my England-based Savoynet friends (Bob is Welsh, f'rinstance) and ask them to tape my lines so that I can copy their accent.

I mentioned to Clare later that listening to us all evening must have been special kind of hell for her. And while she didn't say so, the deep breath and lack of comment was all the confirmation I needed.