Doolittle by little

Of course, the 23-year-old north London singer is prepared in other ways too. She already has her clobber sorted out: she stuck with her trademark legwear – micro-shorts – right through the punishing winter. Even in New York in February, when the snow was thick on the ground and Doolittle was in town to both kick-off her US tour and participate in Fashion Week, courtesy of her new relationship with the Select Model agency.

There’s another reason Doolittle is raring to go at T In The Park: she’s been touring her debut, self-titled album for 18 months. It only came out in America in April, one year on from its UK release. But far from being fatigued, she’s energised by the fact that hers has been such a slow-burning success. There’s no Ellie Goulding-style royal patronage (the hugely hyped but rather beige singer performed at the Royal Wedding after-party), nor well-chosen Florence + The Machine-esque cover version (You Got The Love added rocket fuel to ooky-kooky Florence Welch’s career).

“If you can escape the hype then you can feel lucky,” says the girl born Eliza Caird in the well-spoken-cum-street accent that speaks of both an artsy, privileged upbringing and a career in music that started in her mid-teens. “Because hype is absolutely nothing, it really is. It might feel good at the time but I don’t believe in it.”

Radio, Doolittle notes approvingly, was the thing that made her, even though Radio 1 didn’t pick up on her debut release, an EP that came out way back at the fag-end of 2009. She was no press phenomenon – she wasn’t in any “Hot New Artist for 2010” lists. “I was actually happier without them to be honest. I don’t know if I’m good with pressure or not, but at least without that there was no pressure.”

That’s hard to believe as Doolittle was actually signed to Parlophone in October 2008, and had a publishing deal for her songwriting when she was 16. You might suspect her record label spent a long time hot-housing their newbie talent before unveiling her, and she admits that’s partly true.

“When I look back I don’t think I would have been ready if I’d released something before. I was still really messing around with my sound, and just figuring that out. I’d already found my sound before I got signed, but it was just really nice to have people jump on board and basically back what I was doing.”

Her mum is Frances Ruffelle, the star of London’s West End who, last August, brought a one-woman career-retrospective show entitled Beneath The Dress to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Ruffelle is the daughter of Sylvia Young, founder of the eponymous London theatre school through which many a Spice Girl, Harry Potter extra and TV presenter has passed. Doolittle’s dad is John Caird, the theatre director who is an Honorary Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Her parents split up when she was four years old. But she has eight siblings and half-siblings, and grew up in artsy, well-to-do Primrose Hill, north London, surround by her extended family. Did she ever consider following her father and an acting career?

“I thought about it for a split second. I did love acting in class and drama classes.” Indeed, there was a brief stint in an RSC musical adaptation of The Secret Garden when she was 12. But that was as much about skiving school as feeling the call of the footlights. “I was like, I have to pick one, singing or acting, ’cause I don’t want to be a jack of all trades, I want to be a master of one. I just thought … singing. I made a decision and that was it. It was literally in my head for probably less than a second.”

Her parents, keen to give her as “normal” an upbringing as possible, refused to let her attend her grandmother’s school. They sent her away to Bedale’s, the liberal Hampshire boarding school also attended by Lily Allen.

“I hated it,” she sighs. “I wasn’t good with school in general. I just wanted to be doing something else. But I do feel that I’m not as knowledgeable as I’d like to be. I wish I knew more about stuff. All that time I spent in the classroom doodling and not concentrating – I could have been taking in amazing information. And actually I just wanted to be going off and singing and paying the piano.”

So now, in amongst her heavy touring schedule and the occasional modelling appearance, she’s trying to catch up, reading as much as she can. She loved Sebastian Faulks’ First World War epic Birdsong, and went to see the recent London stage adaptation.

“It’s probably my favourite book. But I haven’t read that many books,” admits the girls who left school after her GCSEs (English was her only ‘A’ grade), “so maybe I shouldn’t say that till I read more.”

Her songwriting, though, is full-steam ahead. Ruffelle, veteran of musical theatre (and Eurovision ’94), had advised her then-adolescent daughter to make sure to create her own material. Eliza Doolittle, self-starting pop star, considers that the best advice she ever received. “If I hadn’t started writing then I don’t know what my tools would be like. I’d be a few years behind basically.” v

Eliza Doolittle plays the King Tut’s Wah Wah Tent at T in the Park on Friday