Most Americans tend to fetishize British accents. There’s a peculiar cross-cultural enthusiasm for the voices of our friends across the pond. I can vouch for young people of all economic and cultural backgrounds being interested and excited by the idea of the Brits. The kid from the projects who doesn’t have a computer and has never seen a play is just as interested as the kid from the Upper West Side who discovered Monty Python when he was 7 while at Chess camp.
And it doesn’t really fade. My friend was over here performing with the RSC in a large company full of people with English accents of many varieties. He tells me that as they made their way through New York, he met many people who loved to hear them talk. They’d say, “Talk! Say something!”
And the actors would ask, “What should we say?”
The Hamlet Project 