Cop’s lah-di-dah accent

I’M ALWAYS impressed by people who can do accents. Other than their own, I mean. The best I can manage is “cream cake” in terrible Geordie. But adopting a different accent for a TV acting role must be extra daunting. Because you’re not allowed to mess up, are you?Viewers are instantly on your back if you utter so much as a syllable that doesn’t ring true.

Martin Freeman’s accent in THE RESPONDER (BBC1, 9pm), in which he plays a deeply troubled Liverpool cop, sounds remarkably authentic to my own ears. But what do my own ears know? They’re from Sussex: they haven’t a clue.

I’d like to hear the verdict of people whose ears are from Liverpool itself. Is Hampshire-born Freeman’s accent convincing to actual Scousers?

Or does he sound more like he comes from, I don’t know, Birmingham or Uruguay or Mars?

Fortunately, I feel on firmer ground when commenting on the programme itself, which I’m pleased to report is tremendous.

Freeman’s character, a battle hardened first responder whose exhausting shifts find him dealing, by fair means or foul, with the same old ne’er-do-wells, is a man on the brink, thanks to the stress of the job and a failing marriage.

At heart, he’s a decent man. But that’s no help. Indeed, a kindly gesture is about to land him in grave danger…

Elsewhere, KEEPING UPWITH THE ARISTOCRATS (ITV, 9pm) follows Princess Olga Romanoff in her role as tour guide for own home, Provender House in Kent.

A glance at TripAdvisor suggests visitors are mostly delighted to find it’s the lady of the manor herself who shows people around this 14th century mansion (ranked 32nd out of 54, last time I checked, in “Things to do in Faversham”, just below the Upstairs Downstairs antique shop and tea room).

But it’s not for gimmicky reasons that the princess hosts her own house tours.

It’s because this house of hers, with its 30 rooms, needs £50,000 a year spent on its upkeep.

These tours don’t bring in a lot of money, we’re told. But if the visitors are as keen as the ones this programme talks to, she’s missing a trick. Sounds as if there’s a fortune to be made from Princess Olga Romanoff souvenirs.

One fan is flabbergasted that this tour cost only £14.

“She could charge a little more money,” she insists. “Maybe even a LOT more…”

Another sounds as if she could faint at any moment, so overwhelmed is she to have been in the princess’s presence.

“She is SO amusing!” this lady gasps.

“She’s so down to earth, it’s just…it’s just incredible! I just LOVE her!”

Princess Olga smelling salts, 50 quid a pop, that would be my starting point.