Need to affect British accent for stage play....?

Question

Where I can order 'coaching' tapes? Also, if you are British - what type of dialect would a sophisticated, intelligent British woman most likely use?

Answer 1

Go to the BBC website.
Go to the Radio section
Start listening to Radio 4 online.

These are about as sophisticated as normal British accents get these days. Most of us speak bizarre regional accents, either sounding like cockney sparras, northern monkeys or dull midlanders (me). Or even worse, welsh.

Answer 2

For a stage play, you would want to use the "Standard English" dialect. It is the most widely accepted dialect for the stage. Watching TV or movies and copying someone's accent is confusing b/c there are so many different dialects. Using the Standard dialect is more consistent for stage work. I took a dialect class this past summer and we used the book "Stage Dialects" by Jerry Blunt. There are CDs that you can get with it as well. It introduces the International Phonetic Alphabet as well, which will help in learning the sound changes from American to British, as well as other dialects (Cockney, Brooklyn, Irish, etc.)

Answer 3

Whatever you do, stay away from imitating an american imitation of a british accent. Go for the real thing, like on the BBC radio channels. A copy of a copy is always worse.

Answer 4

http://www.learn4good.com/languages/everyday_english_pronunciation/index.htm