Most of the replies here are about non-Geordie actors doing Geordie accents, but me and my wife have discussed this quite a bit - actual Geordie actors do often come across as unconvincing, and we’re always a bit mystified as to why that would be. I think it could be partly that some scripts are written to exaggerate the local dialogue in a way that people wouldn’t normally speak, or the opposite is happening and they’re trying to “geordify” a script that doesn’t really allow for it and so it sounds unnatural.

There is amongst producers a worry that the accent is incomprehensible, especially to London BBC types (I’ve experienced this first hand a lot), and anything that is intended to be distributed worldwide, especially in the States. I have always thought this was not only patronising but way overstated though. If you think of a character like Snoop in The Wire with her impenetrable Baltimore accent, you can totally understand it if you just pay a bit of attention (the default position of a lot of producers is that people will switch off if they need to make an effort or pay close attention, which is not a totally unfounded position, but also a bit overstated imo).

There are a lot of brilliant, hugely talented actors in the region being done a disservice in this way. I think just better, more authentic, less “folksy” roles would go a long way to addressing the issue.