If "My Fair Lady" (or its original incarnation, "Pygmalion") has taught us anything, it's that anyone can become a lady with the right training, no matter their origins. Though the one exception to that rule might be the Duchess of Cambridge, a.k.a. Kate Middleton.
In this recently released home video from The Daily Mail, an 11-year-old then-Kate Middleton plays the part of Eliza Doolittle in a school version of "My Fair Lady". As the stubborn Cockney flower girl who becomes the project of linguist Professor Higgins, the character goes through a series of dialect and behavioural tests in order to "become" a lady.
But as the now-Duchess of Cambridge demonstrates, she could easily command the public's attention from early in her 'tweens. According to the Daily Mail, she apparently needing some coaching in order to affect the proper Cockney accent, but garners laughs from the audience with her delivery on stage.
Middleton, of course, grew up in a middle-class family, and her natural accent has been called "posher" than her husband's by British Library curator and linguist Jonnie Robinson. "“Kate has focused on her voice," he explained to the Telegraph. "She always strikes me as more careful ... given that [William] is a royal and she isn’t, you would expect him to be posher, but I’m not sure he is."
Frankly, given how rarely we get to see Kate speak (and how much we want her to!), this performance is a treat in and of itself.
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