One Direction, Accents, and Electricity

Okay, so my younger cousin Vanessa's new obsession is One Direction, the boy-band from the UK. They apparently placed third in the UK version of X-Factor, and they've been touring in the US. (Her friends who were able to sign up for their school's Washington D.C./New York trip got to see them, apparently?) I listened to their songs, and I think they're not bad. I especially like their song What Makes You Beautiful.




I agree with her, they're adorable. ^_^ I also think it's kind of funny, because it absolutely invokes nostalgic memories of boy bands I grew up listening to, like N'SYNC, the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, and so on and so forth. And, like Ness, I thought their accents were adorable, and it reminded me of Gwion from Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's TV show, I'd Do Anything. Gwion was one of the three boys who won the role of Oliver in Oliver! in London's West End, and he was Welsh and adorable. He's the blonde-haired angel with the solo in this clip:



And all the talk of accents reminded me of another musical with awesome accents, in this case, what's known as a "Geordie" accent. It sounds very Scottish, but apparently it's still another variation of the British accent. I read somewhere that it's because the people who live where the Geordie accent is most prevalent live really close to the Scottish border, so it's seeped into their accents, or something? Anyway, the show is Billy Elliot.

I'm dying to see Billy Elliot live on the stage. Ideally, I'd watch it in the West End, where getting the accent right is apparently more stressed than in the American version. On Broadway, to make it more easily understandable to the Americans' ears, they tone the accent down. I think the accent's awesome, though, and after I'd watched the movie, I ended being accidentally in an accent mode for several hours. Not quite Geordie, but definitely more British/Scottish than American.

Anyway, here's the clip I meant to show when I began typing this post: Electricity, by Liam Mower, one of the original West End Billys. He missed his cue to start singing at the very beginning, but his 17 non-stop pirouettes at the end more than make up for it:



I love this song so much because, besides being a great showcase for a boy's talents in singing, acting, and dancing, this song so perfectly explains the jolt I get from acting, and especially singing on the stage.
Electricity sparks inside of me, and I'm free, I'm free!