almost British

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, "Alison" <madammilliemarsh at ...> 
wrote:
>
> 
> Pippin wrote :
> > How well do you think the UK accents fit with the characters?  
> > Were there any that surprised you or seemed out of place?
> > 
> > <snip> 
> >
> > And I initially thought Glasgow was wrong for Hagrid, 
> > but it seems OK now. 
> 
> Alison writes :

> Umm, Glasgow ? Hagrid's accent is West Country, you know, Somerset, 
> Devon, ... Dorset maybe. There's a lot of discussion about it in 
> early interviews with JKR, Stephen Fry and possibly Robbie Coltrane 
> as well.
 
> And I tend to agree about Tom Felton's. He probably should drawl 
> just a little more. Still he was cast before Jason Isaacs, so I 
> guess he had to stick with what he started with.

Geoff:
Robbie Coltrane is most certainly a Scot. His normal 
accent is Glaswegian. In the second disc of the DVD 
of PS, he talks about some action being "like being 
naked in Sauchiehall Street, which any Scot worth 
his salt knows is one of the main streets in Glasgow.

Although not a native, I have lived in the West Country 
- in Somerset - for the last 14 years and have known the 
county for many years prior to that. I would rate Hagrid's 
accent as West Country but not totally definable. It is 
too broad for Dorset but possibly Somerset or Devon. The 
Cornish accent is different again.

Michael Gambon, although apparently born in the Irish 
Republic, normally has a fairly refined English accent. 
He appears to use a rather strange Irish accent as 
Dumbledore.