It's elementary my dear Watson. The accent must be upper class, respectible Oxford or Eton sounding.

Too many James Bond actors to choose from to consider them: Connery's Scottish sound; George Lazenby's Austrailian; Roger Moore's too mumblemouthed; Timothy Dalton would work and he could probably use the work; Pierce Brosnan is Irish I believe.

I too am sorry that Jeremy Brett is gone. What a perfect Holmes he was!

I have to agree with everyone else--an Oxford British accent for Holmes by all means. And please, let's have some Watson (with a suitable Scots accent) in the next one.

And subtitles, please...

Sherlock is an Eglish gentleman and his speach should reflect that.

Definitely upper-class British English.... I mean, can anyone imagine Holmes with a "New Yorker" or "Texan" accent?

From the books, Holmes is English (British is too broad, see LenG's post) and a member of the gentry. Although he worked for a living, that was not his background. He had a "French mother", as they put it (might be grandmother, but I think it was his mother), but he identified as English. He lived in London, but I'm not sure where his family grew up. So, some sort of "upper class" English accent would be appropriate. Sorry, since I'm not English, and not cognizant of all the English dialects, I can't identify the exact accent. You can't make it the exact accent, since his accent won't exist today, but I think a reasonably good Midlands English "upper crust" accent would do. If there are any English people around, care to comment?

On vocal tone and style - if you read the books, Holmes is an emotional fellow, and quite expressive. He's not a "stiff upper lip" type, not at all. He's also somewhat bi-polar - he's either up all night, going a "mile a minute" or he's collapsed on his coach, unable to move. He's a bit "looney". Sometimes he's pedantic and sometimes he's petulant, kind of a whiner. (I do love the character dearly). The only actor I've seen who captured so much of his energy and personal eccentricity was Jeremy Brett. I can't remember how the books describe his vocal tone, but it probably wasn't as soothing as most of the actors portray it. That makes sense, I think that sometimes how things are protrayed in books don't work as well in other media. For some reason I think that Holmes had rather a high voice, but I can't remember where I read that. A high voice won't translate that well to a game, I think, so I probably would not do that. Just make sure the character is rather expressive, and speaks fairly quickly at times. Subtitles, as always, would be great.

English. Henry Higgins-like, perhaps. However, acornia makes a fantastic point -- he could blend in with the crowd wherever he was; that means he needs to be able to talk like Eliza Doolittle as well. I'm probably asking too much, but hey, it's still worth asking

An upper class English accent would be "Absolutely Fabulous!"

An English accent please!

Come on. What kinda' question is that? British of course.

I agree with Titan, why would anything else even be considered and why even ask the question?
Is it being assumed that "Americans" would not be able to understand a British accent?
A non-English sounding Sherlock would sound strange and be distracting and unrealistic.

By the way...what's American English?
New York? California? Texas? Chicago? Alabama?

Good old Sherlock would seem weird with an American accent. If you want to try something different, give him an Aussie one, then nobody would understand what he is saying Definitely an English accent goes with Sherlock Holmes. Watson may have been Scottish but in any movies, games I have seen/played he has always sounded English too.

Proper English....NOT American.

Where I live some people have problems with northern accents. With Sherlock the problems will be more with translations on using either the british or american term. Like lorry, or bonnet for truck or trunk. But like hearing other countries' expressions/colloquilisms.

Absolutely! Jeremy Brett was the perfect Sherlock Holmes, no question! They did well with Mycroft & Watson in that series too IMHO

Yes, Sherlock needs to have an upper-crust English voice or he will clash with expectations.

Its elementary!
Susan <img border="0" alt="" title="" src="graemlins/woozy.gif" />

Of course British or English, whatever you want to call it - the point is, it must be REAL and TRUE to the character, wherever he is actually from (I'm not really familiar with Sherlock).

I think Timothy Dalton is Welsh, so the only real English person to play Bond was Roger Moore - Dalton is, incidentally, my favourite Bond, and it's a shame he only did two movies, and not the best Bond movies at that, but he did a great job.

Sherlock should have a British accent.Imagine a game with an American PI like Sam Spade or Mick Hammer with a British accent.Is Holmes an English family name?

Yes Ditlihi, Holmes is an English surname, though not very common like Jones or Smith

If I recall correctly, the original question was something like . "English or American ENGLISH" not accent, but we all got on our bikes

Having said that, I would much PREFER the Oxford English spellings and pronunciation AND accent. We don't want Sherlock Holmes and Watson saying:

"She'll be right, mate" (Aussie)
"That's OK Pal" ( Nothern American)
"hosta la vista" ?????? or anything else "foreign" .......

Sherlock was OLDE WORLDE and set in ENGLAND, when times were tough, and smoking pipes was "manly" ..... let's not get carried away with making Sherlock "modern" got goodness sakes.

Hi

"Posh" English for Sherlock himself....And definitely sub-titles for everyone , please

Cheers.

Mad

English accent most definitely.

Subtitles would be great just in case.

My favorite Sherlock was Basil Rathbone and wouldn't it be great to have someone mimic him.

Carmen,I was always under the assumption that Jones was a very common Welsh surname or do the English use it as well? Or is it like the name Shannon which I always thought it was Irish,but found out not long ago it orginally came from Scotland

Part of the appeal of these stories is that they are set in Victorian England. It therefore makes sense to use an authentic English accent (and I'm not against an American playing the part so long as he has the right voice) and terminology.

John Cleese

he Does have a very precise English accent... maybe Stephen Fry would be a better choice....

Tig

British, but also with subtitles.