This Town (BBC Drama)
Discussion
Hmm, 4/10 from me.
Incorrect timing - two tone was developed in the 70's, and by 81 had sold out/was dead
Implausible hopping around 'locations', if you lived in CW you wouldn't be going to college in handsworth, or a record shop in Sutton Coldfield
Usual Knight 'bad men in dark places' trope
Woeful accents, yam yam is not south Brum nor Cov
But it moved along well enough
Incorrect timing - two tone was developed in the 70's, and by 81 had sold out/was dead
Implausible hopping around 'locations', if you lived in CW you wouldn't be going to college in handsworth, or a record shop in Sutton Coldfield
Usual Knight 'bad men in dark places' trope
Woeful accents, yam yam is not south Brum nor Cov
But it moved along well enough
Regbuser said:
Woeful accents, yam yam is not south Brum nor Cov
...And nobody in the whole of Brum sounds like Thomas Shelby... which I can't help but hearing in virtually every line of this series.I like it though - the back drops are excellent, even if the locations are a bit of mash-up.
Great sound track.
I'm from Stourbridge so my accent is pretty yam yam - bit posher than someone from Old hill etc but I'm going to struggle watching this aren't I?
I remember someone defending the accents in the Peaky Blinders by saying that during the era that it was set, the accent was slightly different to how it is now and therefore it's accurate but I was never able to listen without wincing slightly.
Also, if they had some proper black country dialect (not accent) on TV I doubt anybody would understand it. "Ar I day sid im ova quarry bonk, 'e were wiv ar kid playin' on the cut" etc.
I remember someone defending the accents in the Peaky Blinders by saying that during the era that it was set, the accent was slightly different to how it is now and therefore it's accurate but I was never able to listen without wincing slightly.
Also, if they had some proper black country dialect (not accent) on TV I doubt anybody would understand it. "Ar I day sid im ova quarry bonk, 'e were wiv ar kid playin' on the cut" etc.
Can anyone with any direct experience confirm or deny the, to my mind, ridiculous pronunciation or "provo"? I've always heard it pronounced prov[o] as in Cov[entry], not pro[vo] as in Co[conspirator]. Also Dante's over emphasis on pronouncing every T in all his words sounds stilted and not something I've heard anywhere in the West Mids (I live between Walsall and Cannock and work in Birmingham)_. Bardon says "mam" and not "mom", too. Sounds wrong, unless they're trying to imply a nod to his Irish heritage. Otherwise it's an OK bit of fluff.
Edited by CHLEMCBH on Thursday 4th April 13:29
CHLEMCBH said:
Can anyone with any direct experience confirm or deny the, to my mind, ridiculous pronunciation or "provo"? I've always heard it pronounced prov[o] as in Cov[entry], not pro[vo] as in Co[conspirator]. Also Dante's over emphasis on pronouncing every T in all his words sounds stilted and not something I've heard anywhere in the West Mids (I live between Walsall and Cannock and work in Birmingham. Bardon says "mam" and not "mom", too. Sounds wrong, unless they're trying to imply a nod to his Irish heritage. Otherwise it's an OK bit of fluff.
I've only ever heard Provo pronounced as in Co[conspirator]. Born and brought up in NI so I've heard it mentioned once or twice.i4got said:
CHLEMCBH said:
Can anyone with any direct experience confirm or deny the, to my mind, ridiculous pronunciation or "provo"? I've always heard it pronounced prov[o] as in Cov[entry], not pro[vo] as in Co[conspirator]. Also Dante's over emphasis on pronouncing every T in all his words sounds stilted and not something I've heard anywhere in the West Mids (I live between Walsall and Cannock and work in Birmingham. Bardon says "mam" and not "mom", too. Sounds wrong, unless they're trying to imply a nod to his Irish heritage. Otherwise it's an OK bit of fluff.
I've only ever heard Provo pronounced as in Co[conspirator]. Born and brought up in NI so I've heard it mentioned once or twice.Watched the first two with my other half.
She is a Brummie, and we are both massive Two Tone fans. I wasn't that sold on it- sort of a Commitments meets Harry's Game. She loves it.
That said, she is of the right age (just) and in the thick of the music and club scene back then. Her comment about the accents, is that a good Birmingham accent is actually really hard to do - anyone who tries tends to sounds like a Yam Yam. The first season of Peaky Blinders (which I loathed) suffered rom this apparently).
We then spent the two episodes with her pointing out all the random stuff, the references and wondering if the nightclub owner was old man Fewtrell (who she knew well).
I have a £10 bet on that there will be a cameo by Carl Chin.
Discendo Discimus said:
Also, if they had some proper black country dialect (not accent) on TV I doubt anybody would understand it. "Ar I day sid im ova quarry bonk, 'e were wiv ar kid playin' on the cut" etc.
My Mum - from Croydon when it was in Surrey, don't you know - tells a tale of when we lived in Kingswinford and they were chatting to a neighbour. She spent the whole conversation nodding along politely and afterwards asked my Dad - from Selly Oak - to translate.
Turns out he didn't have a clue what the chap had been saying either!
PistonBroker said:
Discendo Discimus said:
Also, if they had some proper black country dialect (not accent) on TV I doubt anybody would understand it. "Ar I day sid im ova quarry bonk, 'e were wiv ar kid playin' on the cut" etc.
My Mum - from Croydon when it was in Surrey, don't you know - tells a tale of when we lived in Kingswinford and they were chatting to a neighbour. She spent the whole conversation nodding along politely and afterwards asked my Dad - from Selly Oak - to translate.
Turns out he didn't have a clue what the chap had been saying either!
I remember selling a car to a guy from Tipton and he couldn't read or write but still insisted on texting me. He would type a text out like he was speaking so it went something like this:
"gerrear abat 12 kida n wem next t the haase wiv tha oss aatside"
Translation - "get here around 12, we are next to the house with the horse outside".
Dropped the car off and had to explain to my Mrs at the time what the hell had just happened.
Fun times.
Now done four episodes and really enjoying it.
What struck me was how easily I had forgotten the impact of the troubles. I lived in a garrison town and we were often subjected to scares and subsequent evacuations, although thankfully never bombed. A friend was stationed at Chelsea Barracks and used to continually check the underneath of his car with a mirror on a stick.
The nearest I got was being in the Docklands the weekend before the Canary Wharf bombing. We had taken my nephew to the top of One Canada Square to see the view. After the bomb, it was closed to the public for a long while .
What struck me was how easily I had forgotten the impact of the troubles. I lived in a garrison town and we were often subjected to scares and subsequent evacuations, although thankfully never bombed. A friend was stationed at Chelsea Barracks and used to continually check the underneath of his car with a mirror on a stick.
The nearest I got was being in the Docklands the weekend before the Canary Wharf bombing. We had taken my nephew to the top of One Canada Square to see the view. After the bomb, it was closed to the public for a long while .
Regbuser said:
Hmm, 4/10 from me.
Incorrect timing - two tone was developed in the 70's, and by 81 had sold out/was dead
Implausible hopping around 'locations', if you lived in CW you wouldn't be going to college in handsworth, or a record shop in Sutton Coldfield
Usual Knight 'bad men in dark places' trope
Woeful accents, yam yam is not south Brum nor Cov
But it moved along well enough
Two tone may well have developed from the early seventies, hell, I'd argue the concept was around much longer than that, but it was still alive and well in the eighties. Jerry Dammer didn't set up his record label till '79 from memory, and the whole movement became ever more politicised during Thatcher's 80s. Incorrect timing - two tone was developed in the 70's, and by 81 had sold out/was dead
Implausible hopping around 'locations', if you lived in CW you wouldn't be going to college in handsworth, or a record shop in Sutton Coldfield
Usual Knight 'bad men in dark places' trope
Woeful accents, yam yam is not south Brum nor Cov
But it moved along well enough
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