A LOVE of foreign accents inspired a Wirral brother and sister to invent a party game that lets players get to grips with dialects, no matter how bad they are.

Accentuate was created by Graeme and Fiona Fraser-Bell, who spent their childhood living above their father's jewellers shop in Telegraph Road, Heswall. The game is on sale a few doors away, at Lingham's Bookshop.

The game is for people aged 16 and over. The aim is simple; repeat a given quotation aloud in a randomly selected accent and see if teammates can guess what it is.

The worse the accent attempts are, the more hilarious the game becomes as players struggle to separate their Geordie from their German, their Scouse from their Spanish.

Graeme Fraser-Bell, whose love of accents and dialects spawned the idea for the game, said: “Heswall will be filled with the sound of people doing bad impressions of good accents.

"Few party games are capable of reducing people to tears of laughter within seconds of opening the box – we’ve seen grown men crumble when confronted with ‘Egyptian’ on their Accent Card, while others cringe as they struggle to mimic what should be a fairly simple British dialect like Brummie.

"People have said it’s one of the most uncomfortable games they’ve played, yet the beauty is that, whilst sniggering at everybody else’s efforts, every player knows it’s just a matter of time before it’s their turn... so everyone’s on edge throughout the entire game!”

Fiona added: "With such happy memories of the area, it seems right that our game, Accentuate, should start life on the shelves of this popular, community-driven shop and coffee bar."

Eleanor Davies, owner of Linghams, said: “The staff have all been playing Accentuate and are agreed that it would be fantastic fun around the dinner table with friends or family – perfect with a bottle of wine – and it was a great source of amusement to the whole team.

"We reckon it would be particularly good for family holidays and Christmas, and because of its size would fit easily in a suitcase.

"We'll be taking it on our annual staff night out and giving bonuses to the winning team ... Incidentally, next time you’re in Linghams, be sure to ask Maggie to do her Russian accent!"