Ephraim Hardcastle

THE Queen has to attend a Saturday night pop concert at the Royal Albert Hall to mark her 92nd birthday, televised by the BBC. Hasn’t HM suffered enough? ‘She thought she’d given up this sort of event in 2012, the year she had to endure a Diamond Jubilee concert in The Mall organised by Gary Barlow with grinning Rolf Harris standing behind her, which was televised by the BBC,’ says my source, adding: ‘As ITV demonstrated on Monday night, the monarch needn’t be exposed to showbiz vulgarity. Her walk around the garden with Sir David Attenborough made for compulsive viewing.’ HUW Edwards, 56, will present the BBC’s coverage of the Harry/Meghan wedding next month, but royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell, 64, pictured, en poste for 20 years, will report from the streets of Windsor. In 2005, during a photo call at Klosters, Prince Charles was overheard telling William and Harry: ‘I can’t bear that man. I mean, he’s so awful, he really is’ after Witchell asked the non-committal princes how they felt about their father’s then-forthcoming wedding to maitresse-en-titre Camilla Parker Bowles. A BBC spokesman said of Witchell, who, amusingly, also functions as diplomatic correspondent: ‘He is one of our finest. His question was perfectly reasonable.’ UNDER fire over the Windrush scandal, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, 54, describes herself as ‘single’, having previously been in a romance with Eton-educated colleague Kwasi Kwarteng MP, 42. Her late former husband, the brilliant journalist AA Gill – father of their two children – left Amber for model/journalist Nicola Formby, 53, in 1995, subsequently referring frequently to the latter in print as ‘the Blonde’. MEMBERS of the Household Cavalry are delighted they’ll perform at Harry’s Windsor wedding next month, says my source in the stables, adding: ‘They’ve become a bit bored by lack of official activity. One of their set pieces, the State Opening of Parliament, was dressed-down last year – no horses were required – and it’s cancelled altogether this year.’ HOLLYWOOD actor Sean Penn’s attempt at novel-writing (Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff) is described as ‘repellent’ and ‘stupid’ by critics, with one advising him: ‘Shut your face.’ Penn responds with a publicity campaign quoting the put-downs. The late P G Wodehouse, creator of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, was classier. Dismissed by Irish playwright Sean O’Casey as ‘English literature’s performing flea’, Wodehouse subsequently entitled a volume of letters Performing Flea. THE reign of the corgis with the Queen is over, but two crossbreed dorgis, Vulcan and Candy, remain. Queen Victoria liked smooth-haired collies – owning 88 of them in her long reign – while her consort, Prince Albert, introduced Germanic dachshunds. Edward VII was a terrier man, as is Jack Russell-owner Prince Charles. First Dog in the Cambridge household is Lupo, an English cocker spaniel.