Slightly off the topic, I suppose, but when I listen to some of the budget British studio cast recordings of musicals that were so common in the 1960s, I am surprised that sometimes the cast members sometimes sound rather American, even when playing British characters. And these are not Americans, although they are not necessarily all literally British. Some may be Australian or Canadian.
Anyway, I also find that some of the London cast recordings of the past feature very decent American accents from the locals. Not all of them do, but some. An exceptional one is the London How to Succeed. Perhaps the presence of four American-born principals helped. But it is a rare case of everyone really sounding American enough that they could pass for an American cast.
Supposedly accents have gotten better but when I listen to, say, the Donmar Company (admittedly rather old now), those accents generally vary from passable at best to atrocious at worst. |
