'Lovely to hear Timothée is charmed': Hull basks in actor's review of accent

He might be considered duvall – a handsome man – but that’s not to be confused with mafting – meaning boiling hot. The Hollywood heartthrob Timothée Chalamet has earned himself a loyal new fanbase after he declared Hull’s often derided accent to be “sexy”.

Asked in a media interview how he felt about the British way of speaking, the Wonka star said: “I like the Hull accent.” Confused by the laughter off screen, he asked: “Why is everyone cracking up? Is it not a sexy accent? Hull is sexy.”

The French-speaking Chalamet, born in New York City, said the Essex accent was in his “top three” but, he told LadBible, it was all about Hullian twang: “Middle-aged Yorkshire,” he swooned. “Little sprinkle of that.”

Hull’s distinctive accent features so regularly among Britain’s least desirable tones that even the city’s roadworks have started to take the mickey. Signs reading “Err Nerr Rerd Werks” appeared originally in 2018, playing on Hull’s elongated vowels.

They were followed by a new version in 2020 – “Yer Jerking, Merr Rerd Werks” – and another iteration this year: “Ooohh Nerr, Men at Werk on Rerd”.

The joke, for some, had begun to wear a little thin. “It’s nice to hear somebody say summat nice about us,” said the Hull city councillor Leanne Fudge. “We’re usually not high on the nice list.”

Fudge said she would be delighted to show the new Willy Wonka around the former city of culture and teach him the lingo – “if he can understand me”.

“In some parts of Hull, swearing at someone is a nice thing, whereas most people would class it as an insult,” she said. “In parts of west Hull, prat is actually a compliment.”

The comedian Lucy Beaumont said Chalamet had put the city on the linguistic map alongside its more fashionable European cousins: “No one’s ever thought of it like that, but with that seal of approval from a Hollywood actor, it’s definitely up there – Hull, Italian and French. He’s started a revolution.”

Related: An insider’s guide to Hull: ‘It’s better than you think, honest …’

Beaumont, who wrote the sitcom Hullraisers, said the city had often been “the butt of the joke” on TV since the decline of its once thriving fishing industry under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

But the accent, she added, was a proud reminder of its legacy as a busy foreign trading port, when Hull became a melting pot of voices from Scandinavia, Liverpool and Glasgow.

“When I gigged in Norway, they didn’t have a problem understanding me, because they have the ‘err’ and ‘nerr’ as well,” Beaumont said. “They understand it better than in Cheltenham!”

Rob Drummond, a professor of sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, said Hull had developed its unique lingo as a result of its history, its geography – and also its proud identity. Derided elsewhere, the accent is a badge of honour.

“There’s a hierarchy of accents and Hull comes pretty low, probably. There’s no linguistic reason this should be the case. It’s completely arbitrary,” he said.

“These preferences come from all this social baggage of generations of saying this accent is good or this accent is bad. Received pronunciation and southern British English are seen as prestigious because that’s what all the powerful people speak. It’s not because they’re better in any way.”

As one of Hollywood’s leading men, Chalamet is perhaps unlikely to find himself at a loose end in Hull. But if he does, there will be no shortage of volunteers to show him around.

Beaumont said the 27-year-old should be given the freedom of Hull – but warned: “He looks like a very lovely young man and he should stay away from the region or he’ll be savaged by middle-aged Hull women.”

Matt Hulme, 37, a dishwasher repairer from the village of Keyingham, was delighted to get such A-list recognition: “As well as our haddock, our accent has always been battered, so it’s lovely to hear Timothée has been charmed by our dropped Hs.”

Another local, who did not wish to be named, said “Beauty is in the ear of the beholder” and that she loved her ’Ull accent. It could be tricky, however, when ordering a drink from a “hipster” London barman. “He only understood when I said ‘Kerrka Kerrla’.”

There was delight, too, from BBC Radio Humberside, which took to the streets of Hull at the weekend to ask people to say “something sexy” – to a backing tune of Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus.

Emma Hardy, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, said on Monday she would be “delighted” to take the American-French actor on a tour. “I’d even treat him to the local delicacy of a patty butty and chip spice,” she added, referring to the city’s famous deep-fried, battered sphere of mashed potato with sage.

Others were more forthright. “I have no clue who he is,” wrote one local resident on social media. “But I’m getting my cougar prowl on.”