Alistair McGowan was recounting an interesting conversation he had in Aberdeen recently – one that was so bizarre and yet so acutely tied into what interests him most: accents.
While doing a public-speaking gig at a conference held at the Marcliffe at Pitfodels Hotel, he got chatting to a South African woman who had moved to Aberdeen a few years previously.
As she explained her reasons for moving, Alistair began obsessively fixating on the way she pronounced local north-east landmarks. While her accent remained strongly South African, whenever she mentioned place names like Inverurie and Inverness, she would say them in a north-east accent.
“It was the weirdest thing, but I thought that moment in Aberdeen was an illustration of how accents are passed on,” said Alistair.
“The way you first hear a word is the way you learn it. It was really, really interesting and my chin was on the floor. I’ve tried so many times to tell that story and to get it right with the accents and it’s almost impossible to do.”
It’s understandable why McGowan is so fascinated with the spoken word. Known primarily for his Bafta-award-winning impressions TV shows, the 49-year-old has made a career for himself out of impersonating prominent celebs, from David Beckham to Prince Charles.
But there’s more to him than just uncanny impressions. He’s also successfully turned his hand to writing, presenting and, in the case of his latest work, acting. He’s currently on tour in the role of Professor Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw’s most famous play, Pygmalion. Famously the basis of the musical My Fair Lady, the play revolves around Prof Higgins, who takes up a bet to transform the manners and speech of Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, and pass her off as a society lady.
In this 100-year anniversary production, Alistair reprises the role he first played in the west end three years ago – this time alongside Rula Lenska, Jamie Foreman and Rachel Barry. For Alistair, the opportunity to once again play a character who, like him, “is obsessed with the absolute minutiae of sounds” was too good to turn down. His version of Higgins, he explained, is multi-faceted – “amiable” yet “irascible”, “childlike” yet “abrasive”.
In many ways, Alistair said, they are quite similar, particularly in their shared passion for accents.
“Being interested in language and sound means you become very sensitive to them,” he said.
“And sometimes, I’m more interested in the way people say things that what they actually say. And that means you can seem quite insensitive. Even when I’m listening to Huw Edwards reading the news, for instance, I’m frequently not moved by the news story because I’ve noticed the way he says ‘hospital’.
“So sometimes it removes you from the emotion of life and language when you are listening to the sounds, which is really what Henry Higgins is like. He’s not unemotional, but he almost has an autistic response to sound rather than content.”
As for the play’s core themes, these, too, are tied intimately to Alistair’s own interests – in particular the idea of what our accents say about us. Whether it’s someone with a strong regional accent attending a job interview, or Andy Murray speaking in public, people make assumptions about our backgrounds, economic status and – in Andy’s case – our level of interest in the conversation.
“And that’s what interests me about this play,” Alistair said. “It’s what our accents say about us, and can we change them? And if we do, are we losing who we are? In the play, at the end, Eliza says to Higgins, who has created her anew: ‘What am I good for now? I can’t go back to my old life, but I’m still not part of your world. I’m stuck in between the two. So thanks very much.’
“And in that way, she’s very much like a modern-day lottery or X Factor winner. She’s been taken out of her world, but she’s not quite the real deal. And yet she can’t go back, because they won’t treat her the same.”
From our conversation, it’s clear that Alistair’s knowledge of the way people speak has taken an almost academic trajectory in recent years. And certainly this has been aided by his role as guest presenter on BBC’s The One Show, in which he has been handed the opportunity to tour the UK to better understand regional accents and their variations.
As part of his study, he even spent some time in the north-east. So, “Prof McGowan”, I asked, any observations on accents up here?
“It’s interesting how the accent is levelling off,” he said.
“I went to Torry and it was very strong there among the older people. But among the younger people, especially in central Aberdeen, it’s changed a lot. And it’s the same all over the UK. Accents are levelling out so people can understand each other more.
“But then I talked to some farmers in Buchan, and listened to them talking to each other, and I couldn’t understand a word.”
Alistair McGowan will star in Pygmalion, which runs at HM Theatre, Aberdeen, from Tuesday, March 11, to Saturday, March 15. Tickets and performance times are available from www.aberdeenperforming arts.com or by calling 01224 641122.