Telly Talk: No Brummie dummy
What’s in an accent? Think of Brooklyn and I’ll more than likely hear Robert De Niro’s voice questioning which direction my vision is facing. Consider Whitechapel and every version of The Krays legend will spring to mind. And if I ever chat with a Southern Belle a certain Blanche DuBois will be at the back of my mind for a lot of that conversation. So when a new crime drama set in 1919 Birmingham appeared, my first thought was that this must be Illinois. It’s not. The land of Jasper Carrott just got tough.
Starring Cillian Murphy at his unblinking toughest since he put the Scarecrow’s mask away (you’ve seen him in all of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ flicks, yes it’s him), this is a generation of men just back from the biggest war the world had known, shellshocked and fighting a Depression. Birmingham is developing as industry and factories take hold, and yet motor cars aren’t plentiful and many of the streets are still muddy ways peppered with cobbles. Unions are rising and Communism is lurking. And the Shelby family run the Peaky Blinders – the local criminal fraternity of bookies, robbers and protection racketeers. And Cillian Murphy is a Shelby. With a Brummie accent.
The thing about unfamiliar accents, and by that I mean unfamiliar to the actor, is that sometimes the accent almost becomes more important than the dialogue. Murphy’s accent seems to dip and glide over to Yorkshire from time to time, but this can be forgiven due to his unflinching war-harden stare that simply sees through such small details. And I can make out what he says. There are other culprits who seem to wave their adopted Brummie tone proudly around like a six foot flag and get suitably tangled up in it. I’m hoping key bits of the plot aren’t given to them solely to convey.
“He is the doyen of being from somewhere else”
Sam Neill’s Belfast accent is impeccable, but then he is the doyen of being from somewhere else. He oozes ruthless authority, blind to mercy but unwavering from his cause. Which is to recover a massive big box of guns that accidentally got nicked from the docks when the Shelby family had actually meant to nick a similar crate filled with motorbikes. D’oh!
As the Shelby matriarch, Helen McCrory soon takes the matter in hand with a pithy; “You sell those guns to anyone who can use them, you will hang!”, perfectly delivered by the way and carefully placing the shebang in a time when you could get strung up in England for such violent crimes. I forget how recent that was.
To be honest, by the end of the first episode (five more coming, rub your hands with glee) the craic had drawn me in enough to even put Mr Carrott to one side when the accent was strongly pronounced. Well done Mr BBC. The music was playing some kind of skiffle shanty and I could see the vivid violence in the land against the grey backdrop of the city. It was all falling into place. And as the credits started the roll there was a ‘clang!’ and the closing tune started: ‘Red Right Hand’ by Nick Cave. Really, BBC?! I love that song, but on turn-of-the-century docks? That is going to be a harder continuity sell than the tough Brummie accent, I’m afraid.
Peaky Blinders, BBC2, Thursday 12 September 2013
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