North-East actors Laura Elphinstone and Brian Lonsdale voice their opinions about using regional accents on stage. They tell Steve Pratt about the importance of going native.

THERE was a time when actors had their accents knocked out of them at drama school. Regional accents were frowned upon, everyone had to speak RP – received pronunciation.

Happily, that’s changed. In some cases, regional voices are even encouraged.

“There aren’t too many people out there who can do a Geordie accent,” says Brian Lonsdale, fresh from the triumph of Lee Hall’s new play The Pitman Painters at Live Theatre, in Newcastle, and the National Theatre, in London.

On their acting CVs, both Laura Elphinstone and Lonsdale have an asterisk placed against Geordie on the list of accents and dialects they can do. The asterisk denotes “native”.

Both come from the North- East although only one is using her native accent in the current revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy Bedroom Farce.

“I’m keeping my accent but making it a little bit softer, so I don’t need subtitles,” says Elphinstone, of the production at West Yorkshire Playhouse, in Leeds. “I very rarely work in my own accent, I’ve only done it on a couple of jobs. The accent I mainly do is country – Norfolk, Suffolk and the Fens. When people see you’re Northern, they tend to think Yorkshire.”

But Londsale won’t be speaking in his natural accent in Bedroom Farce because the actors playing his parents are very well-spoken people, so could hardly have a Geordie son.

Both are new to doing a full-length Ayckbourn play after brief encounters with his work in the past. Elphinstone reading part of Woman In Mind helped her win the Carleton Hobbs Award in 2004. Lonsdale did a speech from another Ayckbourn play, Absent Friends, for his drama school audition.

The Scarborough-based playwright’s work is fantastic, they both agree. “He’s done the work for you,”

says Lonsdale. “You play off the truth in it. Out of that, it’s funny.

He’s very good at writing relationships that don’t seem shoehorned in for comic moments.”

As Trevor, he gets to ruin everyone’s night as his relationship with Susannah breaks up – “and that’s fun for me”.

Elphinstone is fond of her character, Kate, who’s throwing the housewarming party with husband Trevor that brings all the characters together.

“I love her because she’s got such a big heart. You can see her as slightly naive, but she’s not, she’s got her head on her shoulders. She looks out for Trevor in the play and that doesn’t do her any good, and she argues with her husband.”

This is one of the few times she’s acted professionally on home ground. Last year, she toured to Northern Stage, in Newcastle, with Far From the Madding Crowd. “It was such a treat to act in my home town because my family can’t necessarily get down to London to see me,”

she explains.

She began acting in Sunderland, at the Royalty theatre. Both her parents were involved with the company there and her first theatrical experiences were watching her dad direct. Later, he turned professional, working at the Customs House, South Shields, and the People’s Theatre, Newcastle.

Lonsdale’s stage appearances started with the Glenholme Theatre Company, in Crook. He joined when he was nine, an indication that he always knew that’s what he wanted to do with his life. At New College, in Durham, a teacher encouraged him.

“She saw something in me, I went for drama school, and there you go,” he says.

He’s doing Bedroom Farce in between stints in The Pitman Painters, the story of a group of Ashington miners who took an interest in art.

The play premiered at Live Theatre before transferring, with the original cast, to the National Theatre.

AFTER a UK tour, the production will open on Broadway next year, when US audiences will have to cope with an avalanche of Geordie accents.

“How are they going to understand that?,” asks Lonsdale, then answers the question himself. “We had some concerns when we moved from Newcastle to London, but it’s been okay. It just takes people a couple to minutes to tune in to it.”

He plays a character called The Young Lad, despite being 30 this year. “I’ve been involved from the beginning.

I was at the very first readthrough of the play,” he says.

For now, both are happy that the accent is on comedy, Ayckbourn style.

■ Bedroom Farce: West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until July 4.

Tickets 0113-213-7700 or online at wyp.org.uk The Pitman Painters: Newcastle Theatre Royal, September 29 to October 3. Tickets 08448-112121 or online theatreroyal.co.uk