(I was born and raised in Wiltshire and will give you a monologue in a fierce West Country dialect if asked).

And, talking of the West Country and strong accents I will now reminisce about a show at The Tobacco Factory theatre in Bristol. There I appeared in a lovely production of “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain. It is set firmly in the state of Missouri. The director was determined that we should master that particular Mid-West accent. Say no more. I played “The King”, a con-man who claimed to be the exiled monarch of France. Luckily, someone at The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School specialised in teaching accents and we all engaged ourselves in mastering the particular flat delivery, the rolling rhotoid “r”sound that distinguishes the Missouri pattern of speech. Blow me down, but a number of people from the US came to see the show and could not believe that we were’nt rednecks from that very part of the world but simple Brits. Memories are made of this.