The Accent Handbook

A handbook for actors, students and teachers full of practical visual, aural and physical exercises for getting to grips with different sounds and refining an accent for a role.

Need to learn an accent for an audition? Got the part but can’t quite grasp the sounds? Want to expand your repertoire? The Accent Handbook is a novel approach to accent-learning, providing a practical, digestible and customisable way of learning any accent of your choosing. Drawing on the authors’ extensive experience coaching students and leading stage and screen actors, the book offers more than 200 empowering exercises to actively explore and hone accent features. You can dip in and out or go from cover to cover, depending on your aims, what you’re learning or how much time you have. The book is accompanied by a wide-ranging and diverse library of contemporary accent recordings from across the globe. Uniquely, it also offers a guide to finding accent samples and getting more out of your listening. A section devoted to accent and acting delves into the powerful interplay between dialect, character and performance. Approachable and encouraging, this book is an essential companion to keep by your side as you take on an accent, from first listen to performance.