It’s been a rough several months for Irish accents on screen. First came the horrible hobbits of Amazon’s Rings Of Power. They were followed by Peig-goes-rogue brogue Helen Mirren debuted in Yellowstone spin-off 1923. Mirren’s character fled the Famine as a young woman. Irish viewers will want to flee the livingroom regardless of age.
With so many lamentable lilts, we should be grateful for small mercies then. And a very tiny mercy is contained within the confusing Prime Video steam-punk melodrama Carnival Row. After a three-year gap, it returns for a second season with Cara Delevingne’s alarmingly not-awful South Dublin accent still front and centre.
Cara’s dad named her after the old Aer Lingus travel magazine. Maybe that goes toward explaining her more or less authentic SoCoDo rasp, as Vignette Stonemoss. She’s a fairy-like “Fae” whose gossamer wings imbue the power of flight – an ability which feels redundant given that she sounds as if she grew up along the Dart line.
That’s a lot to take on, especially after a three-year wait between seasons
The accent isn’t perfect. But it is recognisably Irish. And you do have to credit Delevingne for undertaking some cursory research. She popped over to Dublin when her ex-St Vincent was playing the Olympia in 2017 to vibe with locals. She’s also the best thing in Carnival Row. It’s a gorgeous but muddled fantasy series in which the subjugation of magical races is used as a metaphor for historical injustices.
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Vignette and the Fae are intended as a stand-in for oppressed indigenous peoples. For Delevingne, their fairy-like quality also suggested Ireland. “The word fae is Gaelic and I was always pretty sure the mythical thing of fairies was made in Ireland,” she said in 2019.
“It just made no sense to me that different creatures would be from similar places. Also Irish, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful [accents] and the way they speak and the lyrical way of their words, it just made more sense for the kind of romantic creatures that fairies are, so that just felt extremely important to me.”
Carnival Row is often beautiful. There’s a scene early in the new season in which a steamliner is ambushed by an airship, which zooms in close and then starts to drop bombs. It is both awe-inspiring and terrible.
Where it continues to stumble is in story and dialogue. Series one concluded with the Fae barricaded into the “Carnival Row” ghetto in the city of Burgue – a sort of dystopian cross between Victorian London, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast and the away end at Dalymount Park.
She’s trapped there with her former lover, Philo (Orlando Bloom), a half-fae who has overcome his prejudices and come out in support of his kinsfolk. Meanwhile, Vignette’s former roommate, and one-time courtesan, Tourmaline (Karla Crome) is drawn into a gory struggle with her own magical powers. And, far away, attempts by hoofed “Faun” Agreus (David Gyasi) to flee with lover Imogen (Tamzin Merchant) come unstuck when they are waylaid by the aforementioned airship.
That’s a lot to take on, especially after a three-year wait between seasons. Another issue is almost nobody involved seems to be having any fun. Bloom, in particular, looks as if he’s suffering flashbacks to Legolas the elf’s Moria years. The only one who gets into the spirit is Delevingne. With a pert “Dort” accent, and flapping fairy wings, she does her best to soar above the steam-punk stodge.
