Accent love and Holmes all around

[tilly_stratford]

In TV shows, in radio shows, in movies - I have a tendency to immediately latch onto characters who break away from the RP-accents and who are unapologetically Scottish, Irish or Welsh (especially thick-as-custard Welsh, I find it worryingly sexy).

Why is Mister Hudson the butler my favourite in Upstairs downstairs? Miiight have something to do

Comments

[spimcoot]

I listened to quite a bit of Clive Merrison's Holmes last year to the point where I started imitating his laugh. This is a bad idea in public as it can cause persons of a sensitive disposition to rupture. The Clive Merrison Holmes is so BBC *in the right way* that it doesn't even seem BBC. The new one, oh man, the girlchum and I are the only people I know who despise it. Indifference! I'd welcome some indifference even but no, everyone loves the benighted thing. Pooh! So BBC in the *wrong* way. Benedict is lovely, actually, and would have been a welcome proper Holmes - and it's not the modernity I object to, though I don't quite get that but it could have been done well, but it doesn't even work on its own terms and ... I'll leave my main objection till you've seen it as I doff my Homburg to you on matters Holmes.

Oo, I'm all of a pother now.

[tilly_stratford]

Imitating Merrison's laugh in public is the best idea I've heard all day! I'll have to try it some time!

Well it's a relief to find somebody who doesn't like the new series - I might try harder to watch it now. I get very suspicious of things that EVERYBODY loves - the universally loved things seems to be the ones that people can't stand in another six months. If it has a mixed reception I assume it's more interesting to me.

I might already judge it unfairly - just reading descriptions of it reminds me of a horrible American TV show (Shirley Holmes? Was that its name?) about Holmes' granddaughter or something discovering his old things and solving crimes. That's what immediately springs to mind when people talk about "modern day Holmes". Ugh.

[spimcoot]

Shirley Holmes! Hah! Now there's a series where they started with the name.

You're so right about things being universally loved then discarded later on. This whole Sherlock thing has reminded me horribly of the Watchmen debacle and my main objection is pretty much the same with both: they hugely miss the point. And sure enough, people can see through Watchmen now. I expect when the full series of Sherlock is broadcast everyone will think it's not as good as it was anyway.

[lostwiginity]

I googled "Athelney Jones Welsh" and this entry came up, in case you're wondering why I'm here. I wanted to know if he was Welsh in canon. I still dunno.

The radio series is *brilliant*, and I hope ongoing. I keep relistening to the ones with Jones in them, and never get tired of his voice. I used to not know what kind of accent that he had, which is very "WTH?" if you've never heard a Welshman before ever. I thought he was South African maybe.

Also, that made me imagine him as a black man. Which is just too incredible for Victorian times.

Irish is still my favourite accent, which is why I love nu!Moriarty. \o/

[tilly_stratford]

I have thought about the same, whether the Canon says Athelney Jones is Welsh, or if that was something they did to mix up the cast. I don't even know if the clue's in the name - Doyle had a penchant for weird first names anyhow (which I think the hero of the stories attests to :P )

Also I had nooo idea what Jones was supposed to be when I heard him. My first thought was "does ANYBODY actually speak like that?!"