If you’re in the acting business, it’s inevitable that you’ll have to try your best to master an unfamiliar accent every once in a while.
Naturally, it doesn’t always work out well.
Take Dick Van Dyke’s attempt at a Cockney accent in Mary Poppins, for example…
Or this laughably bad Geordie accent on Castle…
Yep, not quite nailing an accent can happen to any actor or actress – even BAFTA winning ones like Sheridan Smith…
On Tuesday night, she appeared in The Moorside, a new drama depicting the abduction of Dewsbury schoolgirl Shannon Matthews.
While Lincolnshire-born Sheridan’s attempt at a West Yorkshire accent wasn’t anything like as comical as the two examples above, viewers were quick to pick up on it.
https://twitter.com/Obliviroth/status/829082944102920192
https://twitter.com/JoeParkinn/status/829089747561758720
Is Sheridan meant to be doing a Yorkshire accent? It's just she sounds a little like she's from Carlisle. #Moorside
— Adam Wray (@AdamWray2) February 7, 2017
Sheridan's Dewbury accent wasn't up to much was it #Moorside
— Sam Hall (@Sam_T_Hall) February 7, 2017
#TheMoorside is it just me or is Sheridan Smith's accent really distracting for everyone?
— Peter Hess (@peterhessuk) February 7, 2017
Omg Sheridan Smith I love you but your accent is already ruining #TheMoorside 😶
— rebecca (@rebeccamasseyHS) February 7, 2017
The two-part series focuses on local efforts to find the nine-year-old, who went missing from her home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire in 2008. She was later found ‘safe and well’ 24 days later at the home of a family friend. It later emerged that her kidnap had been staged, with Shannon’s mother, Karen, admitting she had arranged the abduction so she could receive the reward money.
With Leeds-born Game of Thrones actress Gemma Whelan playing the role of Shannon’s mother, Smith plays her friend Julie Bushby.
