How to Do Standard English Accents

The essential handbook for every actor

In every drama school, in every English-speaking country, students from all over the world have to learn a Standard English Accent, and voice and drama tutor shave to teach it. But what exactly is it? How many varieties are there? And which one should they use when? Following on from How To Do Accents, this book provides a long awaited,up-to-date answer to these important questions and offers a complete course in how to do A Neutral Standard English Accent & Upper and Upper-Middle Class Varieties

Part One: contains all the tools you need to learn a current Neutral Standard English Accent; neutral in terms of class, race, age, gender, occupation and social background

Part Two: introduces you to the most useful Upper and Upper-Middle Class varieties of Standard English Accent

Edda Sharpe is Voice and Dialect Associate for the Shaw Festival Theatre in Canada, and visiting Dialect Coach for the Royal Shakespeare Company. As well as numerous theatre productions, in the West End, and TV and film productions, her more unusual clients include Ant and Dec, The Gorillaz and, together with Jan, Gordon Ramsay. Edda was head of voice at e15 Acting School and the principal dialect teacher on the MA Voice Studies course at Central School of Speech and Drama. She has also provided accent coaching and training for Lamda, e15, GSA, Arts Educational, Mountview Theatre School, BSA, The University of Minnesota and Florida State University. Edda is a also an accredited NLP master practitioner providing high level voice, personal impact and communication training to business and public sector clients including Hiscox, Aviva, The Met Police, the M.O.D, Disney and CNN amongst others.

Jan Haydn Rowles was Head of Voice and Dialect at Shakespeare's Globe from 2007-2010. She has provided Voice and Dialect coaching at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Almeida, the Donmar Warehouse, the Royal Court, the Manchester Royal Exchange, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and the Salisbury Playhouse. Jan's skills have also been employed on American and British films, radio and TV dramas, such as HBOs Game of Thrones and SKYs Treasure Island. She has provided accent coaching and teaching for Lamda, e15, Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, Central School of Speech and Drama, Syracuse University and Florida State University. She also works as a voice-over artist.and in the West End.