Vıctoria Coren Mitchell How I See It

It would be easier to enjoy ‘The Crown’ if we could forget they’re real people

Empathy is a terrible thing. Without it, you can make so many jokes at other people’s expense. You can read the newspapers with such a light heart. You can relish your luck, health and Western comforts so freely. And you can really enjoy The Crown.

I used to think empathy was the magic bullet. It was the answer to the great question of why we are here and what we’re supposed to do. It was the route to being conscious, careful, kind – and the first step towards leaving the world in better shape than one found it.

Thus, empathy was desirable. And it can be learnt: great art, films, novels, plays and television, alongside offering superficial pleasure, allow us to live a thousand lives beyond our own; to understand what it’s actually like to be someone else, and so increase our own humanity.

Well, I’m over all that. Thinking about other people is awful. It’s too bloody bleak and depressing. Plus, the worldwide web delivers too much raw experience. In a bad year it drowns out everything else, like that film where Jim Carrey can hear God’s thoughts and is deafened by the desperate prayers of a billion people.

Post-internet, postmotherhood, post-pandemic,

I’m finding the only way to get through the day is to pretend that nothing is real but oneself and the next cheese sandwich. Everything else is a hologram. Forget great culture, close your mind and keep those sarnies coming. My contribution to this “Books Special” is the observation that it’s better not to read at all.

Donald Trump must be so happy. I bet he hasn’t read a book for 30 years. He barely reads his own tweets before he sends them. He is given no devastating shortcut to another’s soul; nobody exists but him. He doesn’t even know he lost the election. Truly, ignorance is bliss.

If Donald Trump watched

The Crown, he wouldn’t worry about whether Diana was really so cruelly treated in 1981, nor whether Prince Charles is hurt by the depiction in 2020. Donald Trump would just sit there, happily thinking: “I’m enjoying this programme. Look at that car. Look at that dog. Maybe I’ll eat some sweets and grope a maid. Who is that man in shiny shoes, is that the king? I’m the king. I’ve been declared king. I am king BY A LOT. A handsome king. Maybe I’ll buy Buckingham Palace. There, I have bought it. It’s mine. I’m in there right now, humping a footman.”

If that’s what Donald Trump would do, why should our enjoyment of the programme be spoilt by thoughts of real people feeling hurt, sad or humiliated – then or now?

It is the great gift of some Royals that they allow us to forget they’re flesh and blood, the Queen being the master of the art. One never knows what she’s thinking any of the time. I remember a scandal four years ago when

The Sun newspaper “revealed”, reportedly based on a tip-off from Michael Gove, that Her Majesty had indicated her support for Brexit. Nick Clegg said she hadn’t, and Ed Davey said he was certain the Queen was a Remainer.

Magnificent! The monarch’s opacity allowed them all to queue up and impose their own views on her, hoping for reflected glory like Omega putting a watch on James Bond. I’m surprised Plaid Cymru didn’t reveal that the Queen’s only view on Brexit was that it should trigger an independent Swansea.

Prince William shows strong signs of this quality. He was also hailed by Remainers as being on the team, after he made a few bland remarks about “our ability to unite in common action with other nations”, although Eurosceptics insisted this was a sign His Royal Highness is a globalist by nature and thus, clearly, a Leaver. Both sides were practically renting banner space on his head.

This isn’t just about politics; if we try to imagine what Prince William thinks about anything, we rarely get beyond what we think ourselves. He loves his children. He respects his grandma. He likes a bit of fresh air and a laugh. There is a certain genius in projecting such a featureless personality, allowing us to see only our own reflections. I find myself naturally assuming that Prince William prefers roast chicken to roast lamb, just because I do. I reckon he’s been enjoying Schitt’s Creek, put his back out the other day picking up a sack of potting compost, and is wondering whether he should get his highlights done before Lockdown Three.

Prince Charles never quite had that skill. He’s always been too idiosyncratic and vulnerable. The opaqueness skipped a generation; all the Queen’s children have huge personalities. (I miss the days when one could imagine Prince Andrew in a hot tub at all times, somewhere in the Middle East, unwinding after a strenuous day’s work promoting UK trade at a topless golf tournament, angrily reflecting on how little we appreciate him.)

So, we can believe that Prince Charles is as hurt by The Crown as his friends are saying, just as we can believe Diana was as unhappy as the programme suggests, whereas we don’t really know whether the Queen’s even heard of it.

I wish I didn’t have to think about that, because the series is so incredibly enjoyable. I wish I could block out how unbearable it would be for the young Waleses to watch it – which I’d bet anything Harry has done. William? I couldn’t guess, for which I’m grateful. Empathy is a terrible thing.

I wish I could block out how hard it would be for the Waleses to watch