Alice,
Is Antony Lapaglia the one in 'Without A Trace' - the new(ish) American show about tracking down missing persons? I thought I'd seen him somewhere before. If they are one and the same, he does an American accent much better than an English one.
They are one and the same. Though I've never seen his show, I have seen him in American roles, and he is very convincing. His brother Jonathan Lapaglia is also an actor, and though I only know him from a tv series that was decidedly sub-par, his American accent is pretty good too. I think the point of the accent on Frasier is that he's supposed to be drunk and comical, and that it doesn't matter much that is doesn't match his family. However, that can be a bit insulting to the intelligence of the audience. But Frasier is such a good show on the whole, I suppose they can be forgiven.
Frasier's accent sounds like it's supposed to be "upper-class."
I thought the point of the show and his accent was to make fun of his attempts to move up the social ladder. I think Kelsey Grammer code-switches a lot - when he's talking to his opera/wine buddies and Niles it's posher, when talking to Ros and his dad, it's less posh. This, for me, exposes the ridiculous way in which people still place so much importance on how you say things rather than what you say - and this has always been one of the show's strengths in my opinion.
It's interesting to note how much more relaxed his speech was back when he was on Cheers. Then he was still clearly intellectual, but not nearly so uptight. I really like this aspect of his character arc.
I really loved Frasier on Cheers but hated his own show. Were the writers different?