The first time I saw him playing "against type" was as one of the dog thieves in the film "101 Dalmations" - he was excellent in that part, too.

I'm sure that people who get the chance to play something totally different from the parts they are normally cast in must revel in the opportunity, and it's very likely to give their performance an extra "oomph".

In a couple of weeks, I'm going to see a production of J.B.Priestley's "Dangerous Corner": classic 1930's English drawing-room drama, with a cast of TV soap actors from "Emmerdale", "The Bill" and "Coronation Street" (all decidedly NOT classic English drawing-room). People who know them as the soap characters will have that bizarre feeling of seeing someone so familiar, out of context.

On the subject of accents and actors, I read in the paper last week that the BBC are having great difficulty in finding teenage girl actors for a forthcoming series based on the "Ballet Shoes" books, because none of the people who came for audition was able to speak in a "middle-class, Southern English accent", and they were going to hold open auditions, beyond their normal casting routes, in the hopes of finding some.   (Sloppy)Estuary English now holds sway - and it just doesn't sound right for plays set in the 20th century. The casting director was quoted as saying that the standard, received pronunciation would be very difficult to teach quickly, so they had to find youngsters who spoke that way already.

Did anyone else see that excellent TV interview with June Whitfield last weekend ? She was talking about being trained at drama school in "Received Pronunciation" : "You have to be able to take your accent off, in order to put it (and other accents) on again."

- jeanie