Kensington Palace? It’s just like being in Corrie, said Diana
ANOTHER day, another Harry ’ n’ Meghan wedding documentary. Spread over two nights, The Royal Wives Of Windsor (ITV) followed Trevor McDonald’s saccharine preview at the weekend — and there’s lashings more to come.
A swift flick through the schedules reveals at least a dozen tributes, histories, celebrations and salutes, not to mention the odd send-up, over the next two and bit weeks before the ceremony itself.
Comedy fans will relish a special edition of The Windsors on C4, with Morgana Robinson as a vengeful Pippa trying to spoil the big day.
And if bubblegum romance is your guilty pleasure, Murray Fraser and Parisa Fitz-Henley star on the Lifetime channel in Harry And Meghan: The Royal Love Story — an imaginary account of their romantic break in Africa.
There’ll be the usual sneers from right- on republicans about the non-stop coverage, but think of the alternative: a republic with President Blair and First Lady Cherie. That’s enough to make anyone buy a commemorative Princess Meghan tea-towel.
Despite the plethora of programming, it’s unlikely there will be a better survey of Windsor marriages than Royal Wives. It revealed little that was new, but the footage that illustrated their stories, from Wallis Simpson to Kate Middleton, was well selected. Better still, the talking heads had something to say.
Jeremy Paxman recalled a lunch with Diana when her marriage was falling apart and she was living at bay with sundry lesser royals in Kensington Palace.
Paxo likened the grim brick quadrangle to a prison: ‘ Oh no,’ said Di, ‘it’s an upmarket Coronation Street. As you go out, you’ll see all the curtains twitching.’
Diana biographer Andrew Morton compared the Royal Family with the Mafia: ‘Once you’ve joined, you can never really leave it.’
But it was snide historian David Starkey who really uncorked the vitriol. After dismissing Meghan for having ‘this slightly actressy quality’ he sank his fangs into Diana — hissing: ‘ Florence Nightingale on acid . . . I imagine she had visssions of cosssy family blisss.’ He’ll never be Sssir David Ssstarkey.
The Queen’s former press secretary, Dickie Arbiter, stayed on safer ground, laying into Sarah Ferguson for her appalling dress sense. She brought all her woes on herself, Dickie sighed, by wearing wraps that looked like duvets then going topless on holiday with ‘a man who wasn’t her husband’.
Plainly, Dickie hasn’t forgiven Fergie for the trouble she caused in the Nineties. And, by inference, neither has Her Majesty.
No one dared speculate whether Meghan has signed a prenup, an agreement about what she can and can’t reveal to the world if the worst happens and her marriage to Harry doesn’t last.
If there is such a document, let’s pray it wasn’t drawn up by the dreadful Defoe women, three warring sisters and their mother in legal drama The Split (BBC1).
Nicola Walker, as the oldest sibling Hannah, was determined to fix the payoff for a glamour girl about to marry a Premier League footballer — and she seemed ready to derail the whole romance if her client was denied her share of his millions.
No one mentioned the word ‘ gold- digger’, of course. Everyone agreed she was a ‘sweet girl’. The villain was the soccer star, for his quibbles about signing away half his wealth in the first place.
This is an odd drama. We know it’s emotional, because everyone trudges around London in the rain. The characters are so sly and heartless, yet we’re meant to care about their lost dreams and heartbreaks. After two episodes, I’m tiring of them.