How To Do Stage Standard English & Period R.P

Our second book is coming along nicely!

We've now finished the first part of the book which deals with learning a Stage Standard. This is the accent that all drama students learn when they're at Drama School and now we're having great fun with the second part....We've been looking at lots of clips from numerous films, my favourite being Brief Encounter 'Oh dear I seem to have something in my eye!' and identifying all the different types of period RP. It'll mean that actors can make sure they choose and learn the right type of RP for the period, play and character.

We've got some fantastic recordings that I'm sure you'll enjoy listening to! What's great about the book is that you can really be specific about the sound you are producing and the character you're playing. After all, not all posh people speak the same! So often I've found working with actors, they struggle to identify what the differences are between period and style. Which often means they can only do one type of RP. The danger with this is that they end up always sounding the same whether they're playing a contemporary RP speaker or a 1930's Miltary type! It would seem odd for example, to do a 'Hugh Grant' type of RP to play Hamlet, unless you were making him a public school boy! Or to do a Noel Coward clipped RP to play a contemporary socialite!

We're on target with getting the book finished... we're hoping it'll be in the shops by spring 2011...We're using the How To Do Accents system so it'll be thorough and fun and of course will have our usual dose of humour!

Watch this space!!