You rocked on Radio One, Wills, but don’t you dare do it again!
IT WAS all a bit peculiar and – to use a word never far from the young Royals’ lips – I wasn’t sure how to ‘process’ it. Not William and Harry’s touching vlogs for their Heads Together campaign; nor that oddly stilted and superficial interview compered by Kate that all three did together at a picnic table in the park, which sounded like a sixthform PSHE class (that’s Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education) at public school. All glottal stops and sentences that ended, you know, on a question?
No, it was the Cambridges’ decision to burst into a pop radio studio i n careful dress- down Friday casuals to give a long interview (20 minutes and 55 seconds, but felt even longer) which ended with – and how strange it feels to be writing these words on the Queen’s 91st birthday – them moonlighting as DJs to present the chart show. Sur-prise!? I’ll say.
I’m not being snitty. I’m right behind their mission to make talking about mental health as normal as talking about measles or, in my case, sciatica and tennis elbow… how long have you got?
No, it was the details that gave one pause: the fact that Prince George is past the Peppa Pig stage, that they send out for curry, that they love Homeland and are, wait for this, ‘box-setty’.
The medium was the message: there they were talking into mics and being filmed in a studio with hyperventilating DJs, in opennecked shirt ( him) and cream frilly blouse (her), talking about shout-outs and Sara Cox and Glasto and dad-dancing, and even, at one stage, the ‘pots of lube’.
‘That is Vaseline, I have to clarify that,’ said the second-in-line-tothe-throne, hastily, of the grease being handed out to the charity’s runners in the London Marathon today. It all screamed that the young parents are Radio 1 Royals, just like you and me (I’m too old for Radio 1, but you know what I mean). Normal. And, you know? It sort of worked?
I found I really wanted to know if they slob around in trackie bottoms, when the DJ popped the question. I really wanted to know if Kate was ever really sat with a curry on her lap watching Thrones.
After questions and answers like these, we have to ask whether the usual prohibition about the Monarchy, that it should remain unreachably remote (‘Never let daylight in upon magic’) can still hold good, especially for the Duke of Cambridge, whom we all thought prior to this was prickly and publicity shy. After William has admitted he sends texts to Radio 1 DJs, it’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the Princely tube.
He is now the accessible, relatable Prince, who will cheer on as the marathon’s 40,000 runners pound the pavements wearing the ironic blue towelling headbands of the Heads Together charity.
More to the point, Prince William, his wife and brother opened up a national conversation about mental health by talking about their own issues, while displaying an earnest desire for everyone, high and low, rich and poor, to be able to talk to each other freely about diseases of the mind.
So, yes, Royal Mental Health Week was a bit peculiar, but not off the charts: in PR terms, it was all in tune with Bagehot’s English ideal of the Monarchy as ‘a family on the throne’, and all three made sure we subjects knew they were doing it to ‘big up’ the charity – and not because they want to do reality TV.
Harry was great in his interview, Kate and William were great on Radio 1 – even naturals – but I don’t foresee many more daily stunts, reveals and pop-ups.
This is still the Royal Family, not Keeping Up With the Cambridges.
WHEN the snap election was sprung on us I admit, I snapped. It felt sinister, like a putsch masquerading as a poll, designed to turn a weak Opposition into no opposition, and a nasty turn for democracy. Politically it felt like the low water mark of my lifetime. But I’ve cheered up. There is talk of a progressive coalition of the centre, and June is just around the corner. This too shall pass!