..Make the people of Cardiff, sound like valleys people? I live near Cardiff, I can assure you know one there speaks like the Cardiffians in Torchwood, they all sound like they're from Merthyr Tydfill and Ponty (rural valley-like places in south wales). I haven't seen one character in Torchwood speak with a real Cardiff accent. In the episode small worlds, all the people the guy bumps into and in Ghost Machine all the ghosts and people they ask about the guy (bar the cockney child/man) have accents that are not present in Cardiff. Even Gwen has a Swansea (completely different City) accent.

Plus why are all the places mentioned such as Splott and Butetown the 'grotty' ones?

It portrays Cardiff in such a bad light when it's one of the UK's better cities.

Why guys, why?

This must be a Welsh thing.

I've just got back from visiting a friend who lives in Pentre. Whilst I was there, we went into Cardiff a few times, but I didn't notice any difference in the accents.

To be honest why would the production team make Cardiff people sound weird???

The money they have made for Cardiff since DR Who and Torchwood (maybe Sarah Jane not sure) have been filmed there is astronomical.

So why would they deliberately portray Cardiff in a bad light.........

You should be happy they are portraying Cardiff and what I think is in a good light. I spoke to somebody from Cardiff once who was upset about 'Human Traffic' because it portrayed Cardiff as a bad city. It can't be that bad of a city if directors choose to film there Also to be honest who can tell the difference between regional dialects? To everybody outside my city I sound like a scouser. In my eyes I'm not a scouser as I don't even live in Liverpool however it does not bother me if people think I am from that region. Anyway, Welsh girls sound hot

Perhaps it's because the actors don't come from Cardiff? And maybe some of the characters are not Cardiff born and bred?




Sorry, but not only do I not know of those places and their perceived "grottyness", I think that the team have done a pretty good job in selling Cardiff, with the aerial shots, the Millennium Centre, the waterfall thing, Cardiff Bay etc.

And I guess that since the filming of Tocrhwood and Doctor Who, quite a few people have visited on the back of that, adding to the economic prosperity that has been brought by the stationing of TW and DW production teams for large parts of the year.

Typical English response.

To be honest, being Scottish I can't hear much difference between most English accents, but I don't presume to belittle their opinions when they (oh so often) talk about regional accents.

If you can honestly say you wouldn't mind a main character in your favourite English TV programme talk with a newcastle accent while supposed to be a londoner, then fair enough. If not, then I think Digital Sid has every right to have his say without being told by people who don't even notice the differences in accent that it "must be a Welsh thing".

No, it's your post that is definately an "English" thing.

Digital Sid, I agree with you. Although I find it hard to distinguish between Welsh accents there are noticable differences. I have a close friend from Cardiff and I've always thought the accents on torchwood don't sound anything like his! They sound much more "valleys" as you said.

It was intended to be a light hearted comment (reason for the smiley ); but, honestly, having just returned from a period in Wales, I could not differentiate the accents.

And to my mind, a Londoner is someone who lives in London, so I would not be surpised, or offended, if a 'Londoner' spoke with a Newcastle accent...or a Welsh one.

I'm from West London and we sound different from East or Sarf London, but anyone who's from London is described as 'cockney', which can be annoying, but then people from outside wouldn't necessarily know better...I suppose to people who live there it's obvious when someone doesn't 'sound right'.
I honestly wouldn't know about Cardiff as I've been there (and been impressed by how it's been regenerated in the last few years) and to North Wales and havn't noticed too much difference. Then again I have trouble understanding Geordies, Mancunians and Scousers if they speak fast! And that's only in England.

Well I don't know about the accent thing (sorry) but from what I've seen when watching Torchwood/Doctor Who it looks like a beautiful place and the actors/writers etc. are always saying how lovely the people are

As far as im aware there was never a point where each character sat down and said "Im from Cardiff" people do move around you know, its called migration....

I've also been referred to as a cockney & I live in North Kent 40 odd miles from London!

(BTW went to Cardiff two years ago, very impressive city I thought)

Just because its Cardiff, doesn't mean that the characters are Cardiff born and bred. They could have moved, be visiting etc.

As others have said, Cardiff attracts people from all over Wales (and beyond) in much the same way as London attracts people from all over the UK. Gwen seems (to me) to have a Swansea valley accent, and I don't think they've ever suggested that the character comes from anywhere else.

But didn't we have this discussion last year, too?

^I won't dignify this post with a response

^I don't believe it's deliberate


^They only chose to film here because BBC wales who make the new doctor whos are based in Llandaff which is in Cardiff.

^No, I know this, but in 2 episodes (small worlds and the ghost machine) all the people who said a line and were living in, walking through Cardiff had 'valleys' accents (I would use the other word for the accent but I might offend someone lol).

^Thanks dude.


^lol

^Some parts of it are beautiful, but all of the place names listed in ghost machine are VERY grotty, butetown is the most 'rundown', 'deprived' area of South Wales, when the queen visited in the 80s, they had to build a road for her to travel on and bypass it, it's so bad.

^No, but it's extremely unlikely that not one person that speaks who is living in / from Cardiff speaks with a Cardiff accent.

^It is, but doesnt mean it doesnt have it's shady parts

^Yes, but shorely at least 1 of the people they'd spoken to could have been from there and spoken in the accent.

^I wasn't here last year, so I wouldn't know but I'm sure there are lots of Cardiffians who have noticed and been annoyed by this, infact I wrote this post because me and a few friends were watching an old ep 2 weeks ago and without me mentioning it, both of them picked up on it and disliked it.

Charlotte Church and Colin Jackson both posses Cardiff accents, if you've heard of and have listened to them, use them as your reference to how Cardiffians sound and then compare that to the guy who owns that time gadget thing in ghost machine, and the kid who talks about his ipod and even Gwen and you'll notice the massive difference.

Infact: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/netwo...elticheartbeat <- the presenter here, has a cardiff accent, now compare that to the voices of those who describe Bernie in The ghost machine.

Plus I know they weren't all Cardiff-based actors and I appreciate that some of them won't be, but they could have at least got one or two?

The Cardiff area has 1 million people (50% of Wales) living in it, so there's enough Cardiff-accented actors to go about.

Too me it sounds like Russell casted actors from his hometown rather than Cardiff lol.

In countrycide I didn't mind it as that was set in the brecon beacons which isn't in Cardiff, but when it's claiming to be in Cardiff they could get Cardiff actors lol.

Cardiff's been used in TV and film for years, but it often goes uncredited, like in Tracey Beaker (which was filmed in Cardiff BTW), they visted a castle in the movie version and the castle was 2 streets away from my house, here in Cardiff North, but they claimed that the castle was up north somewhere lol, the same castle that was used in some scenes of Robbin Hood: Prince of thieves.

What do you mean by the "Cardiff area"? The valleys? Weren't you complaining that too many characters in Torchwood have Valleys accents rather than Cardiff accents?

Cardiff has a population of about 350,000; there are 3 million people in Wales.

It's made by BBC Wales isn't it? So I don't see that they would have a delinerate policy of running down anywhere in Wales. It's probably a mixture of the actors available and a desire to sound recognisably Welsh to the world in general.

Personally I don't think it's a grave disservice to Cardiff people, they do after all sound Welsh. We English have to live down some bloody awful accents ranging over the years from Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins to Don Cheadle in the Ocean's films. The Scotish and Irish have it just as bad. Just last week in Heroes we had a bad case of Oirish.

As far as the image of Cardiff the city goes most seem to agree that it looks very modern and attractive. The fact that they list run down areas is I'm afraid completely lost of anyone who doesn't live there. How on earth would we know they are grotty areas? It's like me comparing somewhere to Cheriton or Dallas Brett...it means nothing to anyone (unless anyone here actually happens to live in Folkestone).

They probably picked the areas with names that sounded good.

So they in fact walked from Dover to Nottingham via Hadrians Wall and Cardiff...

And there's still a lot to come. The only other city in the UK that is being transformed as quickly as Cardiff is Liverpool - what's happening there at the moment is pretty incredible too.


Quite. Splott really is quite a comical name for a place, isn't it? And I think it was treated as such in the programme.

I'm going to be visiting my Dad who has just moved to Swansea, and i'm really looking forward to visiting Cardiff (not just for DW/TW reasons,honest!).

Can i just add that the one thing that has impressed him the most since he moved there is just how friendly and helpful the 'locals' are.

I'm really looking forward to my little holiday

Captain Jack has the worst welsh accent ever........

As for showing its bad bits I suppose it is in keeping with the shows theme, in trying to be gritty and more for adults etc....

Captain Jack doesn't have a Welsh accent.

He doesn't? I could've sworn he was from Swansea...



(note restraint: no "Face of Boyo" joke...)

Sid, I do get what you mean about accents, but to the untrained ear ( ie. not Welsh people), we can't tell the difference. As for making Cardiff look bad I don't think it does. My family went to Cardiff for a weekend this year because of Torchwood. We would never have thought of it before. By the way it's beautiful and the people are all so kind.

According to some Welsh customers I had in the bar, it's now pronounced splo (rhymes with owe).

One the other hand, perhaps they were pulling my le.