BWW Exclusive: Diary of an Englishman in New York- Relying on Home Alone to Work on Your US Accent

Academy Award winner Helen Mirren returns to Broadway as Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan's The Audience, which just opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Playing one of Her Majesty's twelve Prime Ministers is Rufus Wright, who takes his audience with the Queen nightly as the UK's current PM, David Cameron.

Follow along as Wright takes us behind the scenes of The Audience's Broadway journey with 'Diary of an Englishman in New York'. Be sure to check back weekly for his latest installments!

Follow Rufus on Twitter (@rufusgwright) for even more updates!

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9th March 2015
The danger of relying on Home Alone to work on your US accent

As British actors, we're used to doing American accents. Some better than others. Most of us have a passable Mid West, possibly a Southern drawl, a 'Brooklyn' accent which is basically an impression of Joe Pesci in Home Alone, and a West Coast, which again borrows heavily from TV. Directors are getting pretty bored of auditioning actors for Edward Albee plays who sound like they're in 90210? Like, this is a really complex charact-errr? Who has loads of family prob-lems?

But that's how we learn our US accents- from the screen, rather then real life. Undoubtedly living in the country is the best way to master the language. But I experienced brutal double standards growing up. My parents were happy to pay for a French exchange: when 13, I was forced to stay with a family in France for 2 weeks and sink or swim. My French improved tenfold. But when I petitioned for them to put me up in the Algonquin for 2 months the following year to work on my East Coast, they flatly refused. Incredible.

I was curious how the American actors in our cast learned their British accents growing up. Again, it was the TV screen. Dylan Baker (John Major) says Kenneth Clarke's famous documentary series 'Civilization' formed his first English accent: the stentorian Clarke walked among the dunes of the Namib desert and held forth on the birth of mankind in a voice that held sway over nations. The result was that when Dylan auditioned for any British play he sounded like a member of the British Royal Family.

The Americans we are working with are an inspiration. Their accent work is amazing. But let's hope we aren't creating a New York youth who go around talking like Margaret Thatcher...

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10th March 2015
Critic, meet actor. Actor- critic.

'Press Night', as it's called in the West End- as opposed to Opening Night here, can be a nervewracking affair. Most theatre critics come on the same night, and if you have a bad show, the pressure is all the greater.

Everything the critics do during the show is pored over by anxious cast members: 'Well, Billington seemed to be enjoying the wedding scene... Spencer definitely reached for his notepad and wrote something down during my long speech about the recession... I think Moore was using his phone. Do you think he was texting the Olivier committee?' But of course all the critics vanish at curtain down.

Talking to actors reduces them to an awkwardness beyond measure. You can't blame them. How would you like to spend 20 minutes with someone when last week you'd effectively told 2 million people you thought they were a lumpen, talentless, prat? If you're weighing up whether or not to go to a party, the first question you should probably ask is: 'Will there by anyone there I publicly called a lumpen, talentless prat? There will? And the cast of the play I recently described as the biggest turkey since Christmas? Yeah- you know what? I'm gonna go home, get an early one.'

Actors aren't much better with critics. It's hard to look someone in the eye when you know they gave you a bad review, but actors often imagine they can erase the critic's memory of a bad performance. 'Didn't like my Richard III, did he? I'll show him.' as you limp exaggeratedly past him on the way to the bar. ''Underpowered' now, am I?' 'Lacking any real passion NOW?' Pity the poor critic who does turn up at a party full of actors and is surrounded by brooding Stanley Kowalskis and mischievous Pucks, all trying to prove that they're far, far better than he gave them credit for.

As an experiment in London a few years back, an Off West End venue booked 5 well known critics to direct new plays- from casting, through tech, into performance- and asked 5 directors to review them. Though most retained good humour, at least one was so furious about getting a bad review that he quit being a critic soon after- and became a playwright.

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Rufus trained at The Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He created the part of David Cameron in the West End production of The Audience and previously worked with Peter Morgan on the original Donmar Warehouse production of Frost/Nixon and in the filmThe Special Relationship. Other theatre credits include: The 39 Steps (Criterion), The One, The Backroom (Soho Theatre) The Empire (Royal Court), Serious Money, The Madness of George III (Birmingham Rep), Private Lives (Hampstead), Crown Matrimonial (Guildford and Tour), Mary Stuart (Donmar Warehouse and Apollo), Journey's End (Duke of York's), Trust Byron, Life With an Idiot and Franziska (The Gate), Single Spies (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Secret Garden (Salisbury Playhouse), and Richard II (London Pleasance)

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos