Bill Bailey
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Bill Bailey is a British comedian and musician. Unfortunately for the Contumacious Continentals - also known as the Precipitate Patriots - his tours have not come to their venues.
But his fans also know Bill not just for his suis generis performances but for his appearances as a team captain on the BBC panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks. With Bill's musical expertise he was always able to come up with a good reply to the questions. But he has also appeared in acting roles on television and in movies, sometimes live action and sometimes as a voice actor.
And of course Bill has been a long time guest panelist on the intellectual celebrity quiz show Qi or in full Quite Interesting. The show was hosted by Stephen Fry for series A to M and the chair is now ably helmed by Sandi Toksvig. Bill was even on Qi's pilot episode broadcast in 2003 and which established the precedence that guests are awarded points not necessarily for being correct but for being interesting. Bill won the game by one point.
Stephen ...
... and Sandi
In the subsequent Qi episodes there have been times when Bill has been able to provide musical effects to accompany the panelists' repartée. And at this writing Bill is tied with Phil Jupitus for the most appearances of a Qi guest panelist. In fact, the creator of Qi, John Lloyd, gave Phil a certificate for his achievement. Or rather since Bill tied with Phil, John gave him half a certificate. Alan Davies, of course, is the one "fixed" panelist, and as a permanent cast member he has appeared on every show.
Bill has also performed as a stage actor and at the 2005 Fringe Festival he and Alan starred in The Odd Couple to good reviews. Bill played Oscar and Alan was Felix. Rather than adapt the play so it deals with two Englishmen being forced by domestic circumstances to take up residence together, they opted to play it in the original New York setting and with American accents.
American accents by British actors can be as problematical as British accents are to Americans. Hands down the worst British accent from an American - and officially voted as such by British thespians - is Dick Van Dyke's - quote - "Cockney accent" - unquote - in Mary Poppins.
By far the best American accent by an English actor is that of Hugh Laurie in the hit TV series House. Most Americans who had never seen Hugh starring as Bertie Wooster (with Stephen Fry as Bertie's unflappable valet, Jeeves1) were surprised once they learned he was English.
Footnote
In England "valet" is generally pronounced as VAL-et. Americans, though, opt for the French pronunciation, val-LAY.
Contrary to popular misconception - even among the British - Jeeves was not a butler. Butlers are the managers of the employees of the upper-crust households whose job is to make sure things run smoothly. Valets, though, are personal attendants assisting an individual in matters of social import (particularly apparel and appearance) and who help with his employer's personal needs. Sometimes a valet is referred to as a gentleman's gentleman.
The common confusion between the two professions prompted the originator the Jeeves and Wooster stories, P. G. Wodehouse, to clarify the point. In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, he wrote - in the first person voice of Bertie - that "Jeeves, of course, is a gentleman's gentleman, not a butler, but if the call comes, he can buttle with the best of them."
More problematical for the critics is when an English or American actor is cast as the other nationality but doesn't even try to change his native patois. That raises the question whether an accent is a "bad" accent when the actor doesn't even try to change. Certainly one of the most famous instances of an American portraying a famous English character who nevertheless delivers his lines in his normal Midwestern American Twang has to be ...
Well, no names.
References and Further Reading
"Bill Bailey", Concert Archives.
"The Odd Couple", Phil Daoust, The Guardian, August 8, 2005.
"British Actors Pick The Worst Brit Accent Ever Given By An American Actor, And They’re Right", Gregory Wakeman, CinemaBlend Newsletter, February 28, 2017.
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, P. G. Wodehouse, Simon and Schuster, 1963.