Cut-glass accents and castles have always been a draw for American audiences.

With a cut-glass accent, impeccable manners and sweet friendly nature.

These days, however, British actors are more likely to be covering up their cut-glass accents than cultivating them.

Her cut-glass accent and pearls add to the shocking pictures of the tortured bodies.

Differences in social background seem less pronounced; there are fewer cut-glass accents, and the gowns are a thing of the past.

The Gresham sisters alone were a carnival of cleavage, freshly cut flowers and cut-glass accents.

Let's break out of cut-glass accents

He is most known for "playing the quintessential, old school Englishman with his dashing good looks, cut-glass accent and thoroughly charming manner".

Mr. Mays, with his cut-glass accent and habit of landing on key words with both feet, would be a star pupil.

She'd been educated at one of Britain's top public boarding schools; she was intelligent, poised, had a cut-glass accent and was strikingly pretty.

The casting notes for the role call for Gillingham to be "good looking, very charismatic" with a "perfect cut-glass accent.

A comprehensive boy, who had failed his 11 plus, he is not your archetypal public-schooleducated barrister with a cut-glass accent and a self-confident veneer.

Prince William's cut-glass accent is a little less polished than Kate Middleton's

Steer fits in comfortably, her arpeggios and cut-glass accent's perfect diction cutting through its woolly acoustics.

Posh punks kept up standards in the Seventies: their artfully ripped bin-liners were worn with a cut-glass accent.

One of the great things about Downton Abbey is the sheer Britishness of it all - right down to those cut-glass accents.

The characterisation is deft, the New Look costumes and cut-glass accents an evocative delight, the unamplified singing a treat.

Send in Joanna Lumley: she can yap at them in that fabulous cut-glass accent and have the place sorted out in no time.

What makes it so watchable is that the cast, all cut-glass accents and evening dress, conjure up the sound effects as well as reading from their scripts.

And, just like Downton Abbey, his new period drama is awash with heaving-bosom action and cut-glass accents

But if you want to make it in 21st century Britain, you'd best have a cut-glass accent and public school pedigree, writes Sean O'Hagan

McGibbon could eventually mimic this naturally and, with the tilt of a cut-glass accent broadly based on art critic Brian Sewell, a new character emerged.

Pakistan affairs intellectual Anatol Lieven compared her accent as "cut-glass accent", but acknowledged her education and good-standing academic background.

Stepping out of her taxi at Blakes hotel, she is the epitome of Waspy chic, with her Chanel handbag and cut-glass accent.

His profession and supply of medication bring to mind "upper-class gentleman serial killers" or "cut-glass accented British actors brought in to play cold killers in Hollywood cinema".