American Actors, Audiobooks, etc

[davewitley]

Joe Bento wrote:

> Is there something about the Queen's English that is absolutely 
> pleasant and non-irritating to listen to?

I don't really know about this.  My feeling is that we all have pet 
likes and dislikes for accents.

> Could English as spoken 
> on the BBC (and Jim Dale's reading of Harry Potter for that 
matter) 
> be considered the world standard for neutrality in accent-free 
> English?

The answer to this is, no, it can't, because there is no such 
thing.  Everybody starts out from the point that the accent they 
were brought up with sounds 'neutral' (for example, I was surprised 
when my school friends told me my mother had a foreign accent), and 
everybody and nobody is right.

On the question of the Harry Potter movies, is it JKR who has 
stipulated that actors be of the nationality of their characters, 
and if so, do WB have to do what she asks?

I had supposed that doing different accents was one of those things 
that actors learn routinely in drama school.  Most of them seem to 
me to do it perfectly competently, from either side of the Atlantic, 
or, indeed, the Indian Ocean.

David