Secret of Poldark's salty language

Eleanor Tomlinson, who plays Demelza in Poldark on BBC One, has told how she was determined to master the authentic 18th-century Cornish accent. To her surprise she discovered that, to cope with the salt and wind, locals would clench their jaws when they spoke – something she tried to emulate.

IT WAS one of the first things viewers of the new Poldark listened for: the authenticity of that tricky Cornish accent.

Critics may be surprised, however, as one star reveals she was carefully trained – to keep her mouth shut. Eleanor Tomlinson, who plays flamehaired Demelza, said she had studied speech differences between contemporary and 18th-century Cornwall so she would not be caught out.

She had wanted her accent to be “perfect” so as not to upset fans, so she tried to speak with a clenched jaw to mimic how the poor living by the sea at the time would have sounded.

Tomlinson, who stars opposite Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark in the BBC drama, said: “The accent is hard to master and Cornish people are so passionate about Poldark, they’re going to be listening for it.

“I learnt their jaws were a lot tighter because of the wind, and when you’re living so close to the sea the salt makes you speak in a different way.

“One of the main things I found hard was that the language is like Old English. They used words we haven’t even heard nowadays.”

Turner has also spoken of how the cast feared scrutiny of their accents after the BBC’s adaptation of Jamaica Inn was criticised because the actors were “mumbling”.

The 31-year-old actress said the complaints about the Daphne du Maurier series “spooked” the Poldark cast.

“We started shooting a few weeks later and I can tell you all the actors were aiming for 10 out of 10 on enunciation. I was scared, yes,” she said.

Asked how she had refined her accent, Tomlinson added: “It was very hard. Being from East Yorkshire I had never really ventured to Cornwall as a kid, so it was an experience.

“I worked very hard with the voice coach, who was fantastic. With Demelza’s accent, she never loses it but she tames it – I was anxious that she never totally becomes a lady, she is never like Elizabeth, and I wanted to keep that trueness.”

The first episode of Poldark was watched by seven million viewers and warmly received by television critics, although some fans used social media to spot historical inaccuracies and attack “dodgy” accents.

Among the errors highlighted were a lighthouse that did not exist at the time and a rogue burglar alarm that crept into a publicity photograph.

Poldark, an eight-part series based on the novels of Winston Graham, is broadcast on BBC One on Sunday evenings.