I have just found out that Lara Pulver is an Essex girl, although a IMBD website says Kent! No she isn't from Kent. Not unless Southend-on-Sea has moved to the other side of the Thames estuary without me noticing!!

Oh Lordy! Probably not,  because that's my area of the country and I guess I'm not attuned to hearing the accent in the way I would be, say, to an Irish accent. I am usually very aware of accents and am a dreadful mimic (not as in bad, it's just that I rapidly mirror people's speech) which has been very useful when learning foreign languages.

Also our local press never mentions her, whereas they are always going on about Helen Mirren (who always says how much she hated the place) and Kara Tointon (not sure my spelling of her name is correct) and the 'Countdown' Maths expert woman whose name I forget (not Carol Vorderman).

Davina wrote:

Lara will be at the BATFAs tonight. She has tweeted that she will not be going in Irene's "battle dress". 'Call me old fashioned and all...!'

Mm, looking foward to seeing footage/pics from this, she looked sooo glamorous even in her outddoor clothes on Sherlock!

Re: her accent in Sherlock and her origins (I've not heard her in other roles but presume it's like her reallife accent?), this mystified me too as it doesn't quite sound like anywhere consistently, and is not pure SE - to me it sounded as if there's a Liverpudlian or at least a 'northern' element in it somehow.

Davina wrote:

I have just found out that Lara Pulver is an Essex girl, although a IMBD website says Kent! No she isn't from Kent. Not unless Southend-on-Sea has moved to the other side of the Thames estuary without me noticing!!

I read this too and checked a BMD site, her birth was registered in Southend on Sea district but to my ears (and accents are something I notice though am rubbish at mimicing) she does not speak with an Essex accent  - at least, I dated someone born and bred next door to 'Saafend' for three years, and listened to Ian Dury quite a bit and this isn't it.
     One doesn't necessarily grow up where one's birth is registered, nor speak with the 'local' accent either. I lived in East Kent for a few years, and I agree, what local accent I heard there doesn't quite fit. So I wondered if she had a parent from elsewhere (eg I still spoke with my parents' accent when we moved across the north/south divide). Her dad seemed pretty certainly of SE origin, and there is a strong candidate for her mum based on age, also registered in the SE. So dead end.
Or so I thought...but in revisiting the sites whilst writing this message I discover I'd dismissed another possible candidate for her mum - whose birth was registered in Liverpool!
So I think that's probably it? 
Sherlock would not have made the mistake I did first time round. Sigh.

NB BMD information is in the public domain for anyone who looks for it, such as via the UK National Archives. If however you think it shouldn't be on this site, let me know and I'll edit.

And Thanks Sherlockskitty for help with the emoticons
*Puts out big e-bowl full of 221B smiley marked cat treats and porcelain bowl, with swirly map logo on it, containing cat tea*

Last edited by Britigander (May 27, 2012 5:52 pm)

Davina wrote:

Helen Mirren was born, bred and educated in Southend-on-Sea and she certainly doesn't have an Essex accent anymore

Heh! Certainly not that I've heard! Perhaps she only does it in secret or with her family or childhood friends...John Barrymore does a nice Glaswegian with his parents, if I remember rightly. John Tennant gets to do his native accent in 'Tooth and Claw' (how does the Tardis adjust that for their listeners?..or does it?..OK, not a question for this thread).
    Something I've always wondered is whether all actors have to learn a range of accents at actor school. I know some (like Martin Jarvis) are 'voice artists', perhaps these are the ones like yourself who are naturally good mimics. Has Phil Davis done anyhing not in SE accent?
I wouldn't have thought Lara's Irene accent is a learnt one, it's too 'quirky'?

Ooh, did you see her on the  Union flag carpet? The streaming was very bad for the first 15mins and I just saw occasional frozen images of people's feet or knees in the outside shots.

Wow! Classy!
Thanks Irene.

Oh, yes, if I had to wear something like that I would surely hit my nose on the floor in about five seconds 
Not practical at all. But a beautiful design apart from that.

That looks quite a practically sized handbag. Besides camera phone, comb and compact, wonder what she has in it? Being practical, perhaps lots of Kleenex in those little packets, as crying may follow any result and can be handed round as necessary; and smelling salts in case the surprise of winning totally overwhelmed Andrew?

Edited to add

Brilliant 'short train' simile, Davina, great instant image of big adoring eyes and tongues hangin out. 
(And perhaps Harry's too)

Last edited by Britigander (May 28, 2012 5:21 pm)

Sounds good, hope we get it over here (UK)

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/lara-pulver-the-infamous-111second-scene-with-sherlock-that-made-my-career-go-pop-7854215.html

If Lara Pulver is sick of talking about that scene, she does a convincing job of hiding it. But the one thought about her naked turn as dominatrix Irene Adler in BBC1’s Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch that she can’t stomach is that some of the 2.5 million viewers who watched it on iPlayer might have paused every frame. At this, she looks horrified, puts her fingers in her ears and sings: “La la la la la. I don’t want to know."

When I mentioned to male colleagues that I had interviewed Pulver, they went gooey-eyed — although the 31-year-old has plenty of female admirers too. And now she has won international recognition for the role, with a nomination for the American Critics’ Choice Television Awards, alongside Jessica Lange,  Julianne Moore and Emily Watson.

Oh .
Um , yes.
I see your point with that.

I guess.

yeaaaaaah, totally see your point.