James McSharry

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 392.

B) audiofile: BBC Voices_scotland-edinburgh.ram

Born:9 August 1961

Lives: Edinburgh, Lothian

Time lived in area: 1 to 4 years

Listen to: James gets angry over a film he has recently watched which depicts people with cerebral palsy - and in particular, the interpretation by one actor of what someone with a speech impairment sounds like.

Transcript

JAMES: On to that, there's quite an interesting thing in it and it struck me I've I've watched it a number of times I saw it on DVD and it has as many DVDs have extras and you had the grotesque erm example of the director telling me how an able-bodied actor pretending to be ah someone with severe CP had lovely erm expressive eyes, are you telling me you couldn't employed a disabled person with that range of impediment for those.. so you only employed him for his eyes what gets me about the thing is, I was saying to someone... there's a bit in the film, have you seen it? (OTHER VOICE: No, I haven't seen it) JAMES: Oh get it, it's a laugh, it's a hoot, it's a... and for all the wrong reasons. There's a guy who has got ME or MS and er, there's another guy with cerebral palsy, (puts on voice) who speaks a bit like that, sort of stuff, but it's very arrhh, arhh, (OTHER VOICE: So he was taught? cos I've not seen this film, he was) JAMES: No, he wasn't taught. That's his.. what make me..his interpretation of what someone with a speech impediment sounds like. So it gets a bit like Skippy, because you remember skippy, I don't know if you remember Skippy, it used to be on in the 70s. It was a wee boy with his kangaroo and his kangaroo (kiss noises) they go What Skip, what Skip, the house is burning down? There's a terrible bit in the film with this guy with ME is the only person who understandy the guy with severe cerebral palsy so the guy pretending to have a severe speech impediment's going 'arhh arhh...Wednesday', and he's going yep, yep, right I'll be with you, and nobody else understands. (OTHER VOICE: yeah) What's interesting as a disabled person when you watch something like that, having come into contact with actors who have eh erm speech impediments and stuff like that as a disabled person you can pick it up so watching the film I knew that he wasn't, he wasn't, he hadn't been, he wasn't using ah a different voice, a different eh vocalisation because of impediment. He was doing sa some perverse eh eh extrapolation of that and it just that that horrible sort of, what boy the place is burning down? come on oo quip you could have swopped him for a kangaroo and it would have the same sort of ah...