News / Cox on isles accent
A LEADING Scottish actor has hit out at the BBC for asking him to re-record his accent for the crime series ‘Shetland’, broadcast on the network earlier this year.
Brian Cox reckoned he had learned the Shetland tongue “pretty well” for his character Magnus Bain, but was asked to re-record his lines because of fears that viewers would not understand it.
Speaking during a debate in Glasgow, he was critical of the corporation’s policy on regional broadcasting.
“I thought I’d conquered the accent pretty well, and even learned some old Shetland words, but I had to re-voice my part because they said my accent was too strong for the average audience to understand,” Cox said.
“This was not an artistic decision; it was a BBC decision to please a certain audience. I was extremely affected by it, it bothered me a lot, because I didn’t think it was fair on those who have that accent or other regional accents who pay their licence fee.
“That shouldn’t have happened in a BBC Scotland drama. I pointed out that they didn’t dub the Scandinavian crime drama The Bridge, they had subtitles, so why couldn’t they subtitle Shetland?”
Following a pilot episode in 2013, six episodes of ‘Shetland’ – based on crime writer Ann Cleeves’ novels – were broadcast during February and March and a further series has been commissioned.
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