Five accents that are a piece of piss for a proper actor, by Sean Bean

NAH then. Proud Sheffield native and Blades fan Sean Bean here. Sometimes acting means doing a non-Yorkshire accent. I can do these five in my fucking sleep: 

Yorkshire

Alright, I know what I said, but not just South Yorks. I can do Middlesbrough, Leeds, Hull and even a solid stab at Harrogate. For longer roles I stick to Sheffield but remember not to add ‘duck’ to the end of sentences. Must have said that 50 times in one Game of Thrones scene. That’s why they chopped me fucking head off. Wasn’t in the script.

All-purpose American

I’ve done shitloads of Yank films. Equilibrium, Silent Hill, The Island, all the ones you see on 5USA and ITV4. I don’t buy into this idea that the US has loads of different accents. Why would they? So just do the main one, throw in words like ‘sidewalk’, ‘sneakers’, ‘eggplant’ and ‘fanny pack’, and if you’re floundering slap your knee and shout ‘yeee-hah!’ Requires reshoots? Yes. Director gets a mard-on? Yes. I still get paid at end of week so fuck it.

Robot

Haven’t played a robot yet but it’s coming. I can feel it when I piss. Anyway I’ve been practicing, because it’s not just adding ‘bleep’ and ‘bloop’ and saying ‘I could fucking murder a pint of oil’. You also have to do the arms and shout ‘mal-func-tion….mal-func-tion’ before powering down as if you’ve run out of batteries. Four decades of acting experience here. Invaluable.

Baddie

Done a ton of these bastards and it’s a breeze. There’s posh and there’s Russian and there’s combinations of the two. Speak slowly, as if the script wasn’t bollocks, and any old shit sounds convincing. I did that Bond with Pierce Brosnan and to this day I don’t know what the fuck it was about. Ping pong possibly.

Orc

Before this new, fancy TV version, I was in Lord of the Rings. They killed me off, the wankers. Shot me full of arrows. Anyway, I was pissed off with the whole affair because first New Zealand’s like Yorkshire but not irreparably scarred by coal mining and steel production and it’s a fucking shame. Second, I actually wanted to be an Orc. I’d spent months doing the voice in the bath. But no, I had to play soppy bollocks Boromir instead. It’s a tragedy. I’d have pissed it as Orc Lieutenant 1.

In Liz We Truss: to resign on day one to make way for Boris

By Abigail Pennson, our reasonable, plain-speaking middle-class columnist slightly to the right of Hitler

IN voting for Liz Truss, I had one caveat: could she be trusted? Did she recognise what Britain truly needed? Does she have the courage to resign immediately? For Boris? 

Because she knows what every Conservative party member knows when facing that ballot: she’s first choice on paper, but second in our hearts. 

That we’re only ticking her box because we believe her. We believe in her loyalty. We believe that she will do the right thing for Britain. And we believe her acceptance speech will be her resignation one. 

‘I will be prime minister for a single day,’ she will say. ‘I did not run for my own glory. I ran to eliminate the Backstabber Sunak, the Judas who even now is being hunted down by MI5.

‘I am not your prime minister. We all know who the rightful prime minister of this country is. The man so shabbily dethroned in an act of madness will be returned to you now.

‘I resign. There will be no leadership contest. There will be no rudderless Britain. The World King is restored to his throne. Rejoice.’ 

Simply by recognising hard political reality, Truss would write her name in the history books. Boris has served his punishment. He’s done his months in exile. Our Napoleon is ready to come marching home. 

With Rishi jailed, awaiting execution at the Queen’s pleasure, Boris would fix the energy crisis tomorrow. Roll up his sleeves and clean up Liz’s little seaside poo problem. Crush inflation like he crushed Covid. 

There has only been one prime minister worthy of the name in the last 30 years. Like Churchill on the eve of war, he is ready to return. Liz Truss’s finest hour is to be his facilitator. I hope she’s bloody proud.