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Friday 24 February 2012

Michelle Collins says fans have accepted her accent

Michelle Collins who plays St. Ella of the Rovers, has told The Manchester Evening News that Coronation Street fans have accepted her Northern accent. Have you? I haven't.

Michelle says: “It's funny, people now come up to me and say: 'oh your accent is much better now', but I haven't changed a thing! I knew it was always going to be hard for people to adjust to seeing Cindy Beale in the Rovers at first, but I think now viewers have accepted me a bit more, it's great.”

As our blogger Sunny Jim said in his post Hit The North: "I was watching The Road to Coronation Street at the weekend and in it, great emphasis is put on Tony Warren's insistence that the actors are nothern as a southern actor putting on a northern accent just wouldn't be convincing. By all means have southern actors in the programme, I had no problem with the Baldwin clan for instance, but having them try to fake a northern accent rarely cuts the barm cake."

Mind you, our blogger Rebecca fairly loves Stella Price.  Do you?

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15 comments:

Digger said...

"...fans have accepted her accent"

Oh no they haven't. They've just realised it's futile to keep banging on about it, as she's not going to get chucked off the show any time soon, more's the pity. We're (at least, I'm) grinning and bearing it. Acceptance doesn't come into it.

BarrieT said...

i've never had a problem with her accent. I don't know what all the fuss is about.

Anonymous said...

I don't have a problem with her accent either.

Looney Baloon said...

I actually quite like Stella, she will never be a great icon but she is a good enough character. I like that she is fiercy protective of Leanne.

ChiaGwen said...

Being Canadian I wouldn't know one accent from another so that doesn't bother me.....what bothers me is the abysmal writing for this character making her into some kind of Nobel prize winner for personal counselling. Having slept with Les Battersby I think that would all but eliminate her from qualifying. Fans are most likely more accepting of her accent than her steady stream of clients asked into the back.

Kiwifruit & Cheese said...

I agree with Barrie, Anonymous & Looney....Never had a problem with her accent and don't mind the character at all. If you don't like her or her accent then that's fine, but don't assume everyone feels the same way. Each to their own I guess.

Humpty Dumpty said...

Here's where I fall out with a lot of posters. Would people from overseas get the same nuances of accent as someone living around Manchester? I'm from the south of England and I have a hard time telling whether an accent is authentic north of Watford Gap but I know what sounds natural. If the accents don't sound natural, the characters don't work. Karl is easy on the ear and the actor is Scottish. Carla's accent doesn't sound natural and neither does Stella's. Some actors are better than others at voices.

Anonymous said...

It's not her accent that bugs me - it's that raspy voice she's got. And I can't stand her character being such a buttinski!

Ditto for Carla - her nasal voice makes me cringe.

As for us overseas folk discerning accents - a lot of us are immigrants from the UK. Some accents are more acute than others, i.e., a Glaswegian -vs- someone from Edinburgh -vs- a person from wayyyy up north. Ditto for the English ones, like Manchester -vs- Cockney -vs- Queen Elizabeth. Others are more difficult to pinpoint for us because we don't live over there anymore.

Same for Canada - we can detect who's from out West, who's from the Maritimes, who's from Quebec, who's from Newfoundland,etc.

~JB in Canada (formerly from Glasgow, formerly from Quebec, now in Ontario. People in Ontario think I'm French because of the nuances in speech I picked up living in Quebec. They're always taken aback to find out I'm actually Scottish. So there ya go!)

:-D

Rebecca said...

I'm Canadian and I have to admit that it isn't her accent that bothers me about her -- I hear a slight difference, but not enough to really bother me. I guess it's probably like Audrey's long lost Canadian son must be to those of you in the UK. His accent was always horrible and makes me cringe just thinking about it, but I don't think it would be as noticeable to people in other parts of the world.
To me it's just a character that doesn't work and is always on the screen.

Anonymous said...

I can't bear it ! Where did she do her accent research? Who was it based on, Thora Hird circa 1945? So hammy !Carla's accent is pretty good, it does sound like someone from cetral Manchester/Salford, I am from here and to be honest people do have nasal accents.

Anonymous said...

As for Stella, I dislike the character, so the accent is mute for me. However, I really do notice how the regional accents of the Corrie characters have changed over the years -- just like most places in the world.

Tvor said...

I don't find her accent all that awful though it is careful and practiced and it does seem to be a bit less forced than it was. I expect she's getting more relaxed with it herself. There's a number of the actors that put on the accent and speak quite posh in real life and if Ali King's is put on, i would never have guessed it. I visit Manchester every year and she sounds pretty authentic to me.

Anonymous said...

I really think it's less that people have begun accepting her accent and more than people have started not caring about the character in general. Her potential is wearing off, so there's less analysis of her two-dimensional character.

Anonymous said...

It's Ken's accent that drives me balmy. Don't know what it is but it sounds more like a speech impediment. His 'sh' sounds (shhhhurly I shhhhhan't shhhhhine my shhhhhhoes today) makes me think he needs major dental work.

Anonymous said...

Has ANYONE noticed an improvement in her accent? It's dreadful...she's dreadful. I dread every scene she's in.

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