BBC's Jamaica Inn: mumbling actors are not a classy act | Media Monkey

Actors in BBC1's Jamaica Inn have faced remorseless criticism on Twitter in recent weeks for apparently mumbling their lines. But now they have come under fire from a harsher critic: Penelope Keith, who played the posh Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in To the Manor Born. The well-spoken 74-year-old actor, who also played Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life, told the Mail's Sebastian Shakespeare: "Actors must remember who they're doing it for. They're doing it for the people who look. How can you be an actor if people can't understand what you're saying? Go and be Marcel Marceau if you don't want people to understand you." Keith, who had elocution lessons as a girl and acted in rep, added: "A lot of the mumbly actors should have a bash at Oscar Wilde or Noel Coward in the theatre, because if people can't hear what you're saying, they don't laugh and that would bring them up sharp. When I act, I want people to understand the story I'm trying to tell. But the problem is more widespread than acting. I mean, can you understand what most people say?"