Frasier Online

Definitely Daphne's brothers. Such bad casting! One has a pseudo cockney accent ala Dick Van Dyke, one mumbles badly to disguise the actor's Scottish origins and the great Richard E Grant is as out of place as Niles and Frasier at The Timber Mill or Hoppy's Old Heildelberg.
They are meant to come from Manchester??

I love the show but find the references to British cuisine etc misrepresentative.
When Donny hides a basket of Daphne's fav English food in the park for her to find she mentions blood pudding (it's called black pudding in England) jellied eels ( No one eats jellied eels !! only a few old cockneys and they are rare and only in the east end of London) and so forth.

Oh and maybe the writers should have had Niles and Daphne happily together without all that protracted Mell nonsense. They spoiled it by dragging it out.

The Coyote wrote:Definitely Daphne's brothers. Such bad casting! One has a pseudo cockney accent ala Dick Van Dyke, one mumbles badly to disguise the actor's Scottish origins and the great Richard E Grant is as out of place as Niles and Frasier at The Timber Mill or Hoppy's Old Heildelberg.
They are meant to come from Manchester??

I love the show but find the references to British cuisine etc misrepresentative.
When Donny hides a basket of Daphne's fav English food in the park for her to find she mentions blood pudding (it's called black pudding in England) jellied eels ( No one eats jellied eels !! only a few old cockneys and they are rare and only in the east end of London) and so forth.

Oh and maybe the writers should have had Niles and Daphne happily together without all that protracted Mell nonsense. They spoiled it by dragging it out.

I remember Daphne about the bovril... "it's supposed to smell bad, it's English". I think the exaggeration is deliberate for comical effect.


I am glad that they protracted it (Niles and Daphne) because it would have killed a lot of the gags. In fact in my opinion they didn't protract it enough. Their marriage should have taken place in the last season, maybe the post (Daphne/NIles) episodes would have been better for it.

The Coyote wrote:Definitely Daphne's brothers. Such bad casting! One has a pseudo cockney accent ala Dick Van Dyke, one mumbles badly to disguise the actor's Scottish origins and the great Richard E Grant is as out of place as Niles and Frasier at The Timber Mill or Hoppy's Old Heildelberg.
They are meant to come from Manchester??

I love the show but find the references to British cuisine etc misrepresentative.
When Donny hides a basket of Daphne's fav English food in the park for her to find she mentions blood pudding (it's called black pudding in England) jellied eels ( No one eats jellied eels !! only a few old cockneys and they are rare and only in the east end of London) and so forth.

Oh and maybe the writers should have had Niles and Daphne happily together without all that protracted Mell nonsense. They spoiled it by dragging it out.

I have to agree, who DID the casting for Daphne's family - it went past comedy into the realms of the ridiculous! How could the whole family have different accents? How did Daphne grow up to be the Daphne of the first few series if she was related to that lot?? Not sure whether they just appear more ridiculous to me as an English person - but I could happily remove the entire family from the series!

Yes, the Moons were bad although it was worth it just to see Niles reaction to them!

I think it's the only-to-be-expected casting of English stereotypes by American producers. It's not really surprising that Daphne starts out as a cliché as that's where the comedy lies - after all, British sitcoms used to excel in stereotyped roles for non-British characters (Manuel being the most obvious example). Over time, Jane Leeves turned Daphne into a real character but the other Moons didn't really have the chance to move beyond stereotype. I found Robbie Coltrane the most unbelievable - totally unsuited to the part.

It's only natural that the writers would try to score comedic points from nationality stereotypes though. Quite late on Niles told Roz that Daphne hasn't slept with Donny yet because 'she's English'. Cue much laughter ...

heartofmotion wrote:Yes, the Moons were bad although it was worth it just to see Niles reaction to them!

I think it's the only-to-be-expected casting of English stereotypes by American producers. It's not really surprising that Daphne starts out as a cliché as that's where the comedy lies - after all, British sitcoms used to excel in stereotyped roles for non-British characters (Manuel being the most obvious example). Over time, Jane Leeves turned Daphne into a real character but the other Moons didn't really have the chance to move beyond stereotype. I found Robbie Coltrane the most unbelievable - totally unsuited to the part.

It's only natural that the writers would try to score comedic points from nationality stereotypes though. Quite late on Niles told Roz that Daphne hasn't slept with Donny yet because 'she's English'. Cue much laughter ...

The French people are not any better, some of them like that girl in High Holidays are not French at all. In fact I don't think I've ever heard a worse fake French accent than the one of that girl. So, if you don't find the way your compatriots are represented in Frasier very convincing then I'll say "Join the Club."

Patrick wrote:The French people are not any better, some of them like that girl in High Holidays are not French at all. In fact I don't think I've ever heard a worse fake French accent than the one of that girl. So, if you don't find the way your compatriots are represented in Frasier very convincing then I'll say "Join the Club."

I can't speak a word of French, but even I can hear that she doesn't sound like French people.

Frank B wrote:

Patrick wrote:The French people are not any better, some of them like that girl in High Holidays are not French at all. In fact I don't think I've ever heard a worse fake French accent than the one of that girl. So, if you don't find the way your compatriots are represented in Frasier very convincing then I'll say "Join the Club."

I can't speak a word of French, but even I can hear that she doesn't sound like French people.

When I see her, she always brings to my mind an image of the stereotypical French maid with the over-the-top accent, sort of like the feather duster from Beauty and the Beast .