Knight-Thompson Speechwork-Certified Teacher

Who is Mark,
and what's
Talk Like That?

Mark is a UK-born dialect coach, now based in Toronto, working with actors internationally.
His background spans theatre, screen, and audio, and his work is shaped by a lifelong awareness of how voices travel, change, and are received in different places. Having grown up in the UK and now living in Canada, Mark brings both an insider’s and an outsider’s ear to accent work — attentive to detail, context, and the pressures actors are actually under.

Talk Like That is the name for that approach.
It’s a way of working that treats accents as systems rather than party tricks, and the voice as an integral part of storytelling rather than an add-on. The emphasis is on clarity, repeatability, and trust: understanding how an accent is structured well enough that it supports the acting instead of competing with it. The aim isn’t perfection — it’s confidence, consistency, and a voice that does its job subtly and well.

A diverse group of actors engaged in a lively dialect workshop, laughing and learning together.

I grew up at a sonic crossroads: the specific phonology of working-class Birmingham—the city my mother had lived in her whole life—interspersed with my Glaswegian father’s distinct rhythms and "musical interference." I didn’t realize it then, but I was already training in the nuances of code-switching and vocal texture.

The Architecture of Communication
At school, I was told I was “good at drawing,” which led me to art college rather than a conservatoire. I graduated with an Honours degree in Design Communication and after spending over a decade as a graphic designer, having lived in various cities around the country—I eventually ended up at the BBC in London.

I wasn't in a lecture hall studying formal phonetics, but I was refining the same skills I use as a coach today: visualizing structure, deconstructing complex systems, and understanding how small shifts in detail change an entire message. I eventually realized that my two perennial interests—acting and accents—were simply another form of high-level communication.

A Global Perspective
Moving to Canada shifted my focus. Teaching English to students from five different continents provided direct, practical experience with non-Anglo mouth shapes and the mechanics of English at every proficiency level. This wasn't academic theory; it was a daily study of how people actually navigate language under the pressure of real-world interaction.

The Coaching Method
Dialect coaching began informally, then professionally, and it stuck because it combined everything I value: precision, storytelling, and the vulnerability of identity. Now a certified coach based in Toronto—surrounded daily by voices from all over the world—I work with actors across film, television, theatre, video games, and audiobooks. My approach is:

Practical: Technical tools that hold up when the camera is rolling.
Actor-centred: Building the dialect around your natural resonance.
Repeatable: Creating a reliable process you can take to every audition.

The Collaborative Fit
I work best with actors who are curious, serious about their craft, and willing to think deeper about voice than just "getting the sounds." If you want to understand the mechanical how and the narrative why behind a dialect, we’ll get on well.