The Importance of Being Earnest
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Senior (55+)Accents
British (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
This is the importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I will be demonstrating my ability to do a British accent of the upper classes fromthe late Victorian to Edwardian periods. Now to minor matters. Are your parents living? I have lost both my parents to lose one parent. Mr. Worthing may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the radical papers called the purple of commerce? Or did he rise from the wrecks of the aristocracy? I'm afraid I really don't know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents. It would be narrow to the truth to say that my parents seemed to have lost me. I don't actually know who I am by birth. I was Well, I was found found the late Mr Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me and gave me the name of Worthing because he happened to have a first class ticket for Worthing in his pocket. At the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It's a seaside resort Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first class ticket for the seaside resort find you in a handbag? Ah, Handbag. Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a handbag. A somewhat large black leather handbag with handles to it. An ordinary handbag. In fact, in what locality did this Mr James or Thomas Cardew come across this ordinary handbag in the cloakroom at Victoria Station? It was given to him in mistake for his own. The cloakroom at Victoria Station? Yes, The Brighton line. The line is immaterial, Mr Worthing. I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me to be born. Or at any rate, bred in a handbag, whether it had handles or not. Seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to. As for the particular locality in which the handbag was found, a cloak room at a railway station might serve to conceal the social indiscretion. Hat's probably indeed been used for that purpose before now, but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society.