I’M quite enjoying Scarborough, BBC1’s new ‘comedy soap’ about a close-knit community in the Yorkshire resort.

It looks so old-fashioned I wasn’t sure at first which decade it was set in - do hairdressers still have hood dryers like Geraldine’s salon in the show? - but that, I think, is part of its charm. Created and written by Derren Litten, who knows a thing or two about northern communities, this is a gentle bittersweet comedy capturing the sleepiness and quirkiness of a seaside town, while presenting it quite literally in a beautiful light. Sweeping shots of the town’s lovely Georgian and Victorian architecture, bathed in sunlight, from the sea front to the winding streets clinging to the hills above should do wonders for Scarborough tourism.

Less brash than Litten’s ITV hit Benidorm, this is a tribute to a place that has, for many, nostalgic appeal, and it shines a light on the familiar minutiae of life. We have probably all, like Karen and her elderly mother, at some point discussed whether soup is best heated in a pan or a microwave. With a stellar cast and some great lines, it’s good to see a British seaside town portrayed with affection on mainstream telly.

My only gripe is the mish-mash of accents. The two lead characters are played by Jason Manford and Catherine Tyldesley, both very good but clearly from Greater Manchester, not North Yorkshire. The accents are ‘generic northern’ from pretty much the entire cast, apart from one or two who sound they might genuinely be from that part of the world.

I’m not saying they should only cast actors from Yorkshire (or even Scarborough, which has a distinct north east twang in its accent), but if you’re going to focus on a specific community, it might be an idea to try and portray the way they speak a bit more accurately.

It brought to mind another production set and filmed in Scarborough - Little Voice, a film that was showered with praise on its release in 1998. When I went to see it I was irked by the fact that Jane Horrocks, in the title role, and Brenda Blethyn, as her awful mother, had strong Lancashire accents, despite playing Yorkshire women. It was something nobody seemed to pick up on, mainly, I suspect, because most film critics are based in the South of England and probably think all northerners sound the same, whether they’re from Bury or Whitley Bay.

Regional accents are rarely portrayed in film and television with much precision. Close to home, Emmerdale - a soap set in the Dales - mixes up Yorkshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester accents, with a couple of Geordies thrown in. There are whole families with a variety of regional accents.

Does it matter? Probably not. I might be a pedant when it comes to trans-Pennine dialects, but I hold my hands up to not always recognising southern accents. If I’m honest, I can’t really tell West Country from East Anglia. People in The Archers sound like they come from Devon to me, even though Ambridge is supposed to be in Worcestershire.

I remember offending a friend at university when I referred to her as a cockney. She was from Portsmouth, a place I probably thought was Plymouth at the time. Back then, even my cousins in the East Midlands sounded southern to me, although over the years I have fine-tuned my ear for regional accents a bit more, mainly due to living in various parts of the country.

For such a small country, we have a rich linguistic tapestry. By ‘eck, that is something we should celebrate.

* "I WILL always remember the excitement in my daughter's eyes when she spotted her first giraffe on wildlife safari in South Africa," says travel blogger Nellie Huang. "And the time she stood at the top of a sand dune in the Sahara, and shouted, 'I'm on top of the world!'" Nellie, author of Explorers: Amazing Tales of the World's Greatest Adventures, travels the world with her four-year-old daughter - who lists Iceland, South Africa and Costa Rica among her favourite countries. I don't think I'd been much further than Leicester when I was four.

Travel bloggers are such awful show-offs - today's version of people who used to bore their neighbours with holiday slides of the Costa. Worse still is a whole family of travel bloggers...or should that be blaggers?

* THE 40th anniversary of cult film Quadrophenia will be celebrated in a Sky Arts documentary this weekend.

Earlier this year I saw Toyah Willcox, who played Monkey in the film, discussing it on stage following a screening. I'd not seen it on a big screen before and it blew me away. It's a very British story of teen angst, tribes and scooters, and it broke new ground with its maverick style, complex themes, depiction of the Mod movement and, as Toyah highlighted, its portrayal of women. Even reaching the Big 40, this cult classic still seethes with rebellion.