Majestic madness
HENRY IX GOLD, 9pm KING Henry IX is experiencing a creeping dissatisfaction with his life.
Waking up to the annoying noise of bagpipes, spending all day shaking hands and cutting ribbons … and, today, watching pensioners do Pilates in a therapeutic pool.
“I’m a symbol of obsolete irrelevance,” says Henry (Charles Edwards).
This comedy from legendary writing duo Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who brought us The Likely Lads and Porridge, affectionately sends up royalty in the fictional, contemporary court of Henry IX.
Fed up with the king’s cardigan wearing, his frosty wife Queen Katerina (Sally Phillips having fun with a brilliantly unidentifiable accent) suggests he needs some PR.
And so Damian, a man who wears espadrilles with no socks, comes in to rebrand him. He suggests the king visits a halfway house for recovering crack addicts in Salford as it might make him seem a bit edgy.
All goes swimmingly as Henry is confronted by a rap group and is rather taken with the lyrics. So much so that it gives him a rather brilliant idea.
“We live in a bubble, Katerina – I intend to burst it,” he declares.
At a state dinner, Henry announces his abdication, believing his 23-year-old son Alastair might be better equipped to connect with the younger generation.
“Did he just use the ‘A’ word?” asks his dotty mother Queen Charlotte (Annette Crosbie).
Oh yes, he did, and now it’s all going to kick off.
Add to that the further complication that Henry rather fancies the palace florist Serena (Kara Tointon), and Alastair (Daniel Quirke) happens to be gay and wants to marry his Australian lover.
It will be up to Katerina and Charlotte, ultra-royalist valet Gilbert (Don Warrington) and equerry Major Francis Hornsby-Bray (Colin Salmon) to close ranks and make the king see sense.