Previous Issue
Issue 3
Five Job Ideas for Brooklyn Beckham
In this week's edition of The Friday Five, editor Joseph Bullmore imagines five new careers for Brooklyn Beckham — from US Ambassador to AI billionaire.
By Gentleman's Journal
The five best public school accents on screen …by non-english actors
- James McAvoy in Bright Young Things (2003)
- Emma Stone in The Favourite (2019)
- Julianne Moore in A Single Man (2009)
- John Lithgow in The Crown (2016)
- Timothee Chalamet in The King (2019)
Words By Joseph Bullmore
Last week, I was one of the few people to notice that a remake of Wuthering Heights had been released in cinemas. The film is the second collaboration between director Emerald Fennell and actor Jacob Elordi — and apparently the whole thing came about when Fennell noticed her leading man’s excellent sideburns on the set of their first outing together, Saltburn, and thought he’d make a great Heathcliffe.
What I thought when I saw that film, however, was ‘doesn’t Jacob Elordi have a surprisingly good public school accent?’ The actor, originally from Brisbane in Australia which is actually nowhere near Sussex, hit a particularly good mid-noughties-Marlborough“mate” throughout. As in, “yes mate”. Or “pub, mate?” Or “what are you doing with that plughole, mate?”
Which got me thinking. What are the other truly great public school accents pulled off by non-English actors — and thus (and listen, you said it, not me) non-public-school-educated actors, of which there must be at least six? It’s not a fashionable question, I know.
1. James McAvoy in Bright Young Things (2003)
Some English people are so English that they are, in fact, Scottish. Some posh Scottish people are so posh and Scottish that they sound, in fact, English. In this adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, James McAvoy (Scottish) puts on a masterful performance as aristo gossip columnist Simon Balcairn (English, but owns half of Scotland): real name ‘Simon, Lord Balcairn, the eighth Earl of Balcairn, Viscount Erdinge, Baron Carn of Balcairn, Red Knight of Lancaster, Count of the Holy Roman Empire and Chenonceaux Herald to the Duchy of Aquitaine.’ His wet-eyed pleading for an invitation to a party from which he has been shunned is particularly spot-on, like a Winchester House boy begging not to be dropped from the Junior Colts A.
2. Emma Stone in The Favourite (2019)
One half expects someone to get gated for bullying halfway through Yorgos Lanthimos’s acidic satire of the love/hate-triangle between Queen Anne, the Duchess of Marlborough, and Baroness Masham, in which Stone produces the sort of swotty, horsey, Home Counties accent usually reserved for Tudor Hall girls who, fittingly, refuse to share their ruler with you.
3. Julianne Moore in A Single Man (2009)
Julianne’s Moore’s voice as the desolate Charley has an exquisite sort of Leeds-girl smokiness that would be perfectly at home asking to bum a “raily” outside the Sloaney Pony, though I haven’t been in weeks.
4. John Lithgow in The Crown (2016)
The battle of Waterloo may have been won on the playing fields of Eton, but the Battle of Britain was clearly won in the tuck shops of Harrow. Lithgow is remarkably well attuned to the jowly growls of big papa Winston Churchill in The Crown — a show about the royal family who, to their own credit, have always done a pretty good job of pretending not to be German.
5. Timothee Chalamet in The King (2019)
‘Once more into the breach dear friends, once more!’ Okay mate. Chalamet: such a day boy.
Don't miss next week
Sign up to the newsletter
Get The Friday Five and the week's best stories straight to your inbox.