It’s a wonder of monarchy that the Queen will sit through Sting
Fifteen years ago, I did a bad thing to my late, sainted mother. I was so keen to share a cherished musical experience with the woman who gave birth to me that I forgot to factor in the high chance she’d loathe every last hellish second of it. Yes, I really did take my kind, old-fashioned Songs of Praise-loving mama (whose idea of musical theatre bliss was The Sound of Music) to see the infamous and excessively blasphemous Jerry Springer: The Opera.
I can still picture my mum’s face etched with bewilderment as she looked at me and my younger sister – both creased up with laughter at songs featuring pole-dancers and grown men in nappies.
So I understand Gyles Brandreth’s concern that Her Majesty the Queen may be plunged into personal purgatory at her official Birthday Party concert, which will be staged at the Royal Albert Hall this coming Saturday. Brandreth believes our beloved monarch should be spared the misery of pretending to enjoy performances by the likes of the rapper Shaggy, Canadian pop pin-up Shawn Mendes, Tantric expert Sting and Aussie songbird Kylie Minogue. He feels her grandchildren, who probably influenced most of the evening’s selection, should celebrate without her.
Now, Ma’am would, I’m sure, be far happier with a party staged at home in Windsor, with a gin-based tipple and a Corgi at her feet. But I’m not certain enjoyment’s really the point here. This, after all, is the Queen’s official birthday: the one created for her subjects to share in festivities with their monarch. It’s not a private celebration.
It will also be the culmination of a week-long Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London, hosted by the Queen, so the event’s acts pay homage to those alliances. Her Majesty wouldn’t be human if she didn’t harbour glee at the thought of all these august heads of state having to suffer alongside her when Sting plays the lute, or Shaggy belts out “Honey came in and she caught me red-handed/ Creeping with the girl next door.” After all, the Queen endures endless brass bands, tribal dances, death-by percussion, modern operas and third-rate chamber music whenever she tours the Commonwealth. The least she can do is torture her guests in return. And since she is a merciful monarch, some of the acts are borderline tolerable. It’s hard not to surrender to the rhythmic grace and soulful melody of South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo. And who doesn’t secretly relish Tom Jones at full Delilah?
Brandreth’s chivalry is admirable, but I feel he’s forgotten that naff concerts can be the most liberating. The stakes are so rock bottom, you pluck enjoyment from low boughs. Furthermore, it’s a key part of family ritual for older generations to suffer the pleasures of their descendants. We share music to explain ourselves to loved ones, but rarely in the expectation that they’ll embrace it, too. Although that can happen. My 10-year-old’s been listening ceaselessly to Drake’s
God’s Plan and I find myself warming to the lyric: “She say, ‘Do you love me?’, I tell her ‘Only partly’/ I only love my bed and my momma, I’m sorry.”
And my own dear mother’s response when I apologised for taking her to the world’s most tasteless musical? “Don’t worry, darling. It was far better than that time I took you all to see the Wombles in concert.”