Here's quite an interesting article about accents in films.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7860531.stm

For those that don't know Allo Allo is a British sitcom which takes a very unusual approach to accents. It's set in occupied France and so everybody is theoretically speaking French but of course it's made in English. So when characters who are French are speaking they speak English with a slight French accent, when characters who are German are speaking they speak English with a slight German accent, when characters who are Italian are speaking they speak - you've guessed it - English with a slight Italian accent and when characters who are English speak (remember in theoretical French) they speak English but with hideously mangled vowels to indicate that their French is terrible.

Your description of how they speak 'French' in 'Allo Allo' reminded me ofDie Düve, the hilarious spoof of Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal", done entirely in 'Swedish'.

Last year I was shocked to come across Hugh Laurie alongside Rowan Atkinson (whom we know well in this American household at least as Mr Bean) in the BBC sitcom Black Adder! I still wan't positive whether he was Brit or Yank until I later saw him interviewed. Same amazement when I spotted "Without A Trace" regualr Marianne Jean-Baptiste in a bit part in one of the BBC Prime Suspect yarns & realized she might be a Londoner of Caribbean descent-- confirmed watching her do a longer role alongside Vincent DiNofrio in 'The Cell'. Another 'cross-speaker', Tim Roth has showed up in so many American things that I wouldn't have suspected, had I not seen him in a BBC classic drama last year.

Check out this completely awesome Frye and Laurie sketch about language, which is like a whole linguistics course in 4 minutes.

Something similar with accents happens in Asterix. The Goths have Fraktur in their speech balloons, the Vikings have lots of øs and ås, etc. When one of the Gauls tries to speak Viking, they put their slashes and rings in the wrong places.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

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Last year I was shocked to come across Hugh Laurie alongside Rowan Atkinson (whom we know well in this American household at least as Mr Bean) in the BBC sitcom Black Adder!

Which particular Black Adder was it? I enjoyed them all but felt that the first of all was the best.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
...Which particular Black Adder was it? I enjoyed them all but felt that the first of all was the best.

All I remember is that Hugh Laurie was all bandaged up, and flirting outrageously with the nurse every time his superior (Atkinson) left the room...

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Originally posted by goofy:
Check out this completely awesome Frye and Laurie sketch about language, which is like a whole linguistics course in 4 minutes..

HAR HAR HAR Looked at the other links there too; I guess they are a comedy team? Wonderful!

Now the best trick for accents in print is the one used by Terry Pratchett. It all started with the character Death who SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Various Discworld races use other typefaces. I don't know how to change the fonts here or I'd demonstrate.

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All I remember is that Hugh Laurie was all bandaged up, and flirting outrageously with the nurse every time his superior (Atkinson) left the room...

That sounds to me as though it was the last one - set in WW1.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

Which particular Black Adder was it? I enjoyed them all but felt that the first of all was the best.

Just goes to show how different people like different things. As I recall the first one wasn't as well received as later series. I certainly didn't like it much. I watched two episodes and that was enough to persuade me against the series*. They were into series three before I eventually watched again and loved it. Of course I subsequently went back and watched everything I'd missed but I still can't claim to be very fond of series one.

My favourite was series four which has the bleakest ending of any comedy series in the history of comedy. Bloody marvellous stuff.

*Incidentally series one of Red Dwarf had much the same effect on me except that I never did get to like that.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

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Originally posted by bethree5:
HAR HAR HAR Looked at the other links there too; I guess they are a comedy team? Wonderful!

They were a comedy team. And Hugh Laurie was in seasons 3 and 4 of Blackadder, and Stephen Frye was in seasons 2 and 4. The episode you saw was General Hospital from season 4.

I'm with Bob regarding Blackadder. I definitely prefer the last three series over the first. In series one Blackadder was a raving loon and pretty well lacking in intelligence. From series two onwards he's much more clever and craftier. His dogsbody Baldrick moves the opposite way, from being fairly intelligent to thick as a brick.

Blackadder the character moves down the social hierarchy from royalty to cannon fodder, and becomes more intelligent with each downward step; similarly Jeeves is the genius and Wooster the flake. Is this a theme in British comedy or am reading too much into this?