Chez Kay
Andrew Kay is getting square eyes and speaking in tongues
Prone as I am to obsession, I find myself now hooked on the BBC’s new iPlayer. My TV viewing habits have always been odd, I am a lifelong Coronation Street fan – I wept when Vera shuffled off a few weeks back and still think that Kevin Webster is the sexiest character, but have no idea why. Sadly the iPlayer is only BBC, so my favourite square eyed vice is as yet unavailable on demand. As a committed Apple Macintosh user I do hope that the rest of the TV channels start to acknowledge our existence and produce players that work in all formats.
“The slogan is ‘Making the unmissable, unmissable’. I prefer ‘Making the unacceptable dispensable’”
The BBC player has changed my viewing habits completely. I now watch what I want when I choose to. It means that I am no longer frustrated when I stay home to watch something which promises to be good but turns out to be absolute rubbish.
The BBC slogan is ‘Making the unmissable, unmissable’. I prefer to think of it as ‘Making the unacceptable dispensable’. If it doesn’t suit I switch it off, but at my own convenience.
It has though reminded me of one of the most bizarre aspects of TV drama, and that is the random appearance of regional accents. It was an episode of Casualty that reminded me of this. I quite like Casualty, although that was certainly a symptom of my ‘staying in is the new going out’ phase. Currently, going out is definitely my modus operandi. Hence sitting up late and watching TV on the laptop.
Anyway, Casualty is populated by characters with the most diverse range of regional accents currently on the box. Holby City runs a close second, but then it is set in the same hospital in some fictionalised version of Bristol. In Casualty the characters spout accents in a manner that can only be described as profligate. Oh, I know we became a nomadic race in the last half of the 20th century, when 18-year-olds fled the parental nest to study as far away from home as possible. And I guess that with kids now not leaving home, ever, the dispersal of our accents and dialects may slow down. They may even strengthen as migrant cultures do in their new found homes.
I rather like my soft Lancashire tongue, with its funny qualities that make softy southerners giggle. But I do baulk at the broth of brogues that casting directors see fit to force upon us in some multicultural stew. It may seem inclusive, but more often than not it simply sounds daft.
