Prepare for their announcement of the pregnancy exactly same time as Queens speech on xmas day.
Alex Belfield
Alex Belfield
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Interesting that you picked up on the lowered voice -- in the last thread, I posted a reference to Elizabeth Holmes, the unqualified psychopath fraudster behind Theranos scandal in Silicon Valley who was caught artificially lowering her voice to a near-baritone when being interviewed/speaking to investors/speaking to employees etc. between that, the "speaking without relevant experience/qualifications", the "crazy -eyes", the affair that she was having etc etc.... I have been increasingly convinced that we aren't just dealing with a narcissist. We are dealing with a psychopathic fraudster. The damage that those cause is enormous and they have zero remorse, ergo the psychopathic tagFrom the Telegraph: A rough copy and paste because of the subscription wall.
Has Prince Harry transformed his royal accent for the new podcast?
Eyebrows were raised at his newly-adopted style of speech, as heard on his and the Duchess of Sussex’s latest podcast
ByRobert Johnson21 December 2020 • 2:23pm
The trailer for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new series of podcasts for Spotify came out last week, and Prince Harry appears to have altered his accent
One of the pleasures of Tier 3 has been rewatching all three series of The Windsors, Channel 4’s wickedly irreverent parody of the Royal Family. The performances of Haydn Gwynne as a Cruella de Vil-like version of the Duchess of Cornwall and Morgana Robinson as a scheming minx Pippa Middleton are brilliant. But the real joy is the hilariously plummy accents of the young Royals, particularly Prince Harry who always refers to Miss Middleton as “Pip –arrr!”.
So when the trailer for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new, lucrative series of podcasts for Spotify came out last week, many observers were struck by what seemed to be Prince Harry’s conscious distancing from his posh roots by adopting a new, er, more common accent.
It’s not the first time a Royal has attempted this. When Zara Tindall was awarded Sports Personality of the Year in 2006 she was mocked for appearing to adopt an Estuary English accent. So is Harry going down a similar route – only this time towards a strange form of Mid-Atlantic? After an initial Hugh Grant stutter, he was called out for pronouncing the year as “Twennytwenny” and stating “whatyouneedadoo”. According to his wife at least, he has ‘a podcast voice’.
His grandmother is known for her highly exaggerated form of received pronunciation or RP. Also known as the Queen’s English, it is called received as in accepted (compare received wisdom) but is now considered archaic. Think of HM’s saying “hice” rather than “house” or “orf” for “off”. Despite the younger royals sounding extremely posh, compared to their grandmother their accents are almost street.
You might not recognise actor Jane Whitthenshaw’s face but her voice has starred in everything from Douwe Egberts’ coffee ads to a of host BBC Radio dramas. She is recognised for her ability to adopt a wide variety of accents, from Irish and Geordie to RP and in the new year she is appearing in a new BBC version of Dostoevsky’s The Devils in a variety of roles.
“When I was at the Guildhall School of Drama in the 1980s,” she says, “we were encouraged to keep our ‘native’ accents – for example my classmate David Thewlis was broad Blackpool – but we were taught RP so we could list the ability to talk that way on the CV, alongside what was then known as Cockney or Geordie.”
Whitthenshaw believes that RP sets you as aside as does any other accent. “For example, the Black Country accent is often derided as comic. Likewise sounding posh can be a disadvantage. You sound privileged, you can sound arrogant and it detaches you from ‘normal’ people. You sound superior and, unless you are Jacob Rees-Mogg, who wants to sound superior?”
A more relaxed Harry and Meghan gave the world a privileged peek inside their $15m Santa Barbara mansion earlier this year
She points out that the expert in changing accents is the Queen herself. “In her role as probably the most recorded individual in history, you can see that her voice today is a world away from that when she came to the throne – though I’m not sure Prince Philip can say the same. Early on her voice was very high and up in her head. Now it is more centred and has a different resonance, much warmer and richer.”
People adjust their language to fit in. So Prince Harry has loosened his accent to make it more acceptable to real people. He never had the cut-glass vowels of his grandmother and this is part of breaking with the Firm and moving on.”
She believes phrasing is often more identifiable than actual accent. “The younger generation in the UK,” she says, adopting an Edith Evans-style accent, “are becoming homogenised. The media they consume, whether on TV or YouTubers, comes largely from the US. Teenagers on this side of the pond now often adopt the American upward inflexion – where you end every sentence as if it is a question – without them even realising.” So imagine the effect on Prince Harry’s voice of living with an American – an actor herself, surrounded by Americans in the US.
Whitthenshaw warns that Prince Harry has to be careful when trying to adopt a new accent. “In acting, the voice is a generic part of the character. For example, the actors in The Crown do an amazing job, particularly Emma Corrin as Princess Diana. Of course, she has hours of footage to study but it is uncanny how she has picked up the vocal tics. The secret is not to impersonate but to make it truthful and not just to stick the voice on top. That doesn’t sound authentic.”
Whitthenshaw’s husband Hugh Kermode, himself an actor, points out that it is actually very usual for people to have more than one accent. “Remember that the older generation would adopt what was then known as a ‘telephone voice’,” he says.
So what can Harry do to sound authentic? Despite the fact that the London Speech Workshop’s website states that its courses offer accent softening, founder Emma Sarlin is cautious about emphasising this. “Though on the back of an article I did on Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding nine years ago,” she says, “we had a number of enquiries from people who wanted to rein in posh accents. Now, however, people are more interested in exploring why their communication isn’t working.
According to Prince Harry and Meghan, Archewell Audio will provide "different perspectives" and interviews with "amazing people" CREDIT: Getty Images
What Harry wants is to connect. His accent may not be the problem but if, for example, you have a very clipped cold voice you are creating a distance between yourself and the people you speak to. A tight jaw leads to sharp sounds. Your accent is part of who you are but, at the same time, you want to be sure you are communicating. People with an RP accent don’t really open their mouth. Vowels are a space to fit in emotion – if your vowels are clipped you will struggle to connect. The result is they feel they are too posh and everyone is judging.”
But if Prince Harry really wants to impress, maybe he should attempt a Geordie accent. “Most actors would say that this is the hardest to pull off,” says Whitthenshaw. “I was lucky that when I was at the RSC, I was taught how to do it by Alun Armstrong, the actor who played the corrupt politician in Our Friends In The North. I can still pull it off, thanks to my dresser Mandy when I was working in Newcastle. All I do is say in my head what she always said – ‘I’m going doon the road fer a tab’ – for it to come back.”
Though that does sound more like something Princess Margaret would say rather than Prince Harry.
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Would not surprise me at all. Or worse, isn't Eugenie due early in the New Year? She wouldn't upstage her twice...or would she?
The Duke of Windsor also famously transformed his accent after he married Wallis Simpson; he definitely adopted a more transatlantic tone of voice. Alex Jennings, who played him in The Crown, demonstrates this brilliantly.
Oh yes, she would.Would not surprise me at all. Or worse, isn't Eugenie due early in the New Year? She wouldn't upstage her twice...or would she?
In a heartbeat. Meghan would upstage anybody doing anything. It's who Meghan is. I do think that Harry is finally beginning to see her as the world sees her, though.
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Madonna did the same thing for the 45 min she was living here in the UK and married to Guy Ritchie. As a ResidentMerkin, that drives me utterly bananas when Merkins move here, having NEVER set foot outside of the United States (and sometimes even having never set foot out of their native Ohio/Los Angeles) and within a week they've developed this cringey faux British Accent.... you literally want to slap the taste out of their mouths when you listen to them. I usually hear that, note the name and walk away having categorised that person as unwell.
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Being a European and in my 40s I don't understand this fahrenheit tit that Americans still use so I've looked it up and 70F is 21C. So above typical room temperature. Yet she needed that massive parker in above room temperatures
65 %, 7 %, 29% when I looked, which doesnt add up to 100%so more people believe swollen liver than she is really pregnant
Meanwhile Hazard was out with her in just his regulation
grey. grey grey grey. I wonder who does their laundry? I suspect no one. Or DoritoBeing a European and in my 40s I don't understand this fahrenheit tit that Americans still use so I've looked it up and 70F is 21C. So above typical room temperature. Yet she needed that massive parker in above room temperatures
Meanwhile Hazard was out with her in just his regulationprison uniformdrab polo shirt and nondescript cap.
Ewww
I do think that Harry is finally beginning to see her as the world sees her, though.
Why do you think that, @TheSherryEmoji? I'm really interested to hear your thoughts because I'd like to believe it's true, but I'm uncertain if it is.
Oh and welcome
Why do you think that, @TheSherryEmoji? I'm really interested to hear your thoughts because I'd like to believe it's true, but I'm uncertain if it is.
Oh and welcome
I'm shocked. Surely you're not suggesting that Meghan and Harry can't afford a little household help? That would be tantamount to treason.
But maybe that's why they moved into that big, fancy house - they wanted the world to assume that they DID have staff. After all, who would live in a house with that many bathrooms and not employ a maid? Someone has to clean all those lavatories.
Is the coat on Megah's Mirror yet? I want to see if it is a real fur edging (looks like it is) so that we can go to TOWN on that hyper-hypocrite
65 %, 7 %, 29% when I looked, which doesnt add up to 100%
ETA - took one for the team and had a look on the site. Nope. not there.
Yes. However. I dont think her miscarriage was particularly traumatic. Glammed up for print , I agree. Made to be larger than life. "My black cat is blacker than your black cat".
And I agree. It's what I call a cringing protest. Not brave enough to stand up and be counted. And irritating as anything that the nose piece goes over the nose and the chin piece goes over the chin and can't really go wrong.
Could be that she bought him an entire shipping container of those grey polo shirts, and treats him to a brand new one every day for the next ten years? At Primani prices it would probably only cost £37.
Or that's why their laundry is grey.
Well - as they reach the end of their first year outside the RF, Harry will no doubt be recalling all the family time he used to have at Sandringham as Christmas approaches. He may believe that Meghan had good reason to cut her dad out of her life - all he knows is what she's told him, after all - but now that he has spent many, many months with her (and Archie) in a new country, in a new house, cut off from all his friends and family, I can't see that Harry WOULDN'T be thinking that maybe Meghan was the problem - not everyone else, as she constantly claims. I believe that it must have crossed his mind, anyway.I do think that Harry is finally beginning to see her as the world sees her, though.
Why do you think that, @TheSherryEmoji? I'm really interested to hear your thoughts because I'd like to believe it's true, but I'm uncertain if it is.
Oh and welcome
I think his thought processes are slow. She's far more intelligent than he is. Having gone to live in the USA with Meghan, and having been exposed to her (and almost nobody else) for months and months and months, I believe that he's starting to question what's been happening. He never says anything on social media - she does all of that, for the pair of them.
At this time of year, before most of the world was locked down, people value their families enormously and want to spend time with them.
Harry must have worked out by now that Meghan doesn't like his family. She, on the other hand, has deliberately chosen not to associate herself with her family. I believe that Harry has to be looking at his wife and wondering why.
WRT the miscarriage - I am sure there wasn't one. No miscarriage ever starts with a pain so sharp that you drop to the floor (singing anything) so that is just nonsense. Miscarriages start with bleeding. The pain sometimes doesn't start for days. If she was really in enough pain to have dropped to the floor, she would have dropped Archie as well, and been entirely incapable of singing.
Harry MUST KNOW that the miscarriage story is a fake. Even if she did have a miscarriage, it couldn't have happened as she described it. He will have read what she wrote about it and shaken his head, realising that his wife was lying.
Best answer.
I'm thinking Californian style improvement guides, you know... Guide to public speaking, gardens made easy, parenting for dummies..
I think he's becoming more like her by the day. She's done the classic narc thing of moulding him so her way is the only way. He was the archetypal little boy lost after losing his mum, he was then moulded by the Army. That fell by the wayside and now he's moulded by her. I don't believe he's ever had a true identity of his own.I do think that Harry is finally beginning to see her as the world sees her, though.
Why do you think that, @TheSherryEmoji? I'm really interested to hear your thoughts because I'd like to believe it's true, but I'm uncertain if it is.
Oh and welcome
Apart from a period post-Canada when he was sulkiness personified, he now looks like he's well at home in LA with all the other attention-seeking freaks to me.
When I was at Secondary school in the 80's, I was a prefect but having trouble getting the kids to listen to me when I was monitoring the stairs and asking them to keep to the left. One day one of the most stern female teachers pulled me aside and said "you need to speak in a deeper tone of voice to command any respect" so I did......and they listened! From then on, I made a conscious effort to lower the natural tone of my voice a bit when in situations where I wanted to be heard or taken seriously......not so much that you would think "what the heck is she putting on that weird voice for"......just enough to stop going squeaky in excitable or stressful situations (Like Holly Willoughby!)
I'm not sure if it was from the Maggie Thatcher school of "how to get ahead" but it appears that back then, women were deemed more succesful if they were emulating men.
I'm sure that I wouldn't have been able to have lowered my voice all the time, so I assume this is my natural voice now and it's neither low or high, so I don't think it had a lasting effect!
Maybe someone gave Meghan some voice advice...lol!
It's probably grey because they wash at 30 degrees with non-bio. Gotta save the environment and all that.
Hmm. When did Meghan ever take anyone's advice about anything? She is perfect. She knows she is perfect. She needeth not advice, especially from peasants.
*and for "peasants" read "anyone who isn't Meghan"......................
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