When I heard that King Charles had a film made about himself – a sometimes ‘elegiac’ film, to quote the BBC website – it seemed like such a very vulgar thing to do (and I speak as a highly vulgar person myself) that I thought it must be a joke.
Imagine the late Queen doing such an egotistical thing. She did, of course, allow the BBC to make a 1969 documentary called Royal Family in a bid to respond to that less deferential decade, showing herself grilling sausages and watching television, but came to regret it as she felt that it made the family look too normal – letting in daylight upon magic, as Walter Bagehot warned – and threatened to erode the mystique of the monarchy. In a show of very queenly imperiousness, she ordered the film to be locked away, and it has not been shown on television since 1977.
Imagine the late Queen doing such an egotistical thing
But though she may have thought better of the project, you can understand why the Queen thought it might have been an appropriate response to changing times – to the 1960s, in particular, when even Princess Anne, certainly no icon of the counter-culture, got up on the stage at a 1969 performance of the smutty hippie hit musical Hair and danced alongside the cast, garbed in a navy trouser suit.
This new abomination from King Charles – Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision, to be screened on Amazon Prime Video next month – is the exact opposite of Royal Family. It seeks not to show King Charles as a normal guy, but as a visionary. It’s like something Robbie Williams would do – or even worse, Harry and Meghan.
Sucking up – sorry, ‘in attendance’ – at the premiere were the usual showbiz suspects who wheel themselves out to reassure this deeply mediocre man how special he is whenever the occasion demands. Dame Judi Dench, Sir Rod Stewart and Sir Kenneth Branagh fawned over the King and Camilla in Windsor Castle, where the Waterloo Chamber was turned into a makeshift cinema for the evening. You can just imagine the Queen’s face.
The topic of this abomination is predictable; to quote the BBC:
‘King Charles has asserted his belief in the need for human life to work in keeping with the natural world – saying he would not be deterred by critics or scepticism. “This was the approach I was going to stick to, a course I set, and I wasn’t going to be diverted…it all boils down to the fact that we are actually nature ourselves, we are a part of it, not apart from it, which is really how things are being presented for so long.’”
I love the way KC still acts as though nature-worship is some big brave outlier attitude, whereas we’re all soon going to be shivering to death in caves because of ruddy net zero. Imagine having the absolute nerve of owning seven palaces and ten castles – not to mention the Queen consort’s gaff where she presumably gets a break from having her ear chewed off about the environment – lecturing the common people on how wonderful it is living at the mercy of nature.
Narrated by Kate Winslet – who is shaping up to be a right Royal sucker-upper with the best of them – this project sounds like a smorgasbord of self-regard, showcasing Charles making speeches about environmental matters from the age of 21 right up to the present day. Like a lot of highly-privileged people, he has developed a persecution complex in order to make his position seem less unfair, and is always keen to put the finger on some anonymous cadre of grey men who want to make him look ‘bonkers’. (Doesn’t take much doing, if you will insist on talking to geraniums.) Slobbers the BBC website: ‘As the decades went by, support for sustainability became more mainstream and his views were seen as going from “crazy” to “common sense”.’
For that perfect Marie Antoinette touch, the King is filmed at Highgrove feeding chickens and collecting eggs, in a shed called Cluckingham Palace. (This is so Meghan) The BBC informs us, straight-faced, that ‘the inclusivity of his beliefs are also suggested as we see him at a fire ceremony, alongside indigenous peoples wearing elaborate headdresses, at an inaugural “Harmony Summit” last summer.’
A monarch who has more in common with native peoples on the other side of the world than he does with his own subjects is not ideally placed to be a good monarch, to put it mildly.
As with all those who enjoy the alleged ‘comedy’ of The Goons, the King is basically a deeply humourless person, so I was glad to see that the film features at least one good joke – a jibe, really – when Charles recommends his favourite baking potato; ‘If you want to have a decent baked potato, which I love, you’ve got to have the crispy skins, so the red Duke of Yorks are very good.’ I liked the idea of Andrew watching this section, gnashing his teeth in fury that he had been relegated to a humble spud.
One of the most pleasant things about the Queen was that despite her station, you never got the feeling that she was moaning at you, or suggesting you might change your ways. But with this King, you often feel that we, the people, don’t measure up to what his ideal subjects should be. Why can’t we be more like those people over there, who don’t bother themselves with silly ideas of democracy, but simply worship the head honcho? He slips a bit of that in here, by the sound of the BBC website: ‘It is an eclectic and international vision, with the film sweeping around examples of harmony in places including India, Guyana and Afghanistan.’ Harmony – Afghanistan? Excuse me while I hurl.
I’m not a monarchist, but I miss the Queen. I hate seeing Charles’ face on banknotes and stamps. There is something of the petulant Ruritanian princeling about him, a feeling that he has no real understanding of the British people the way his mother did. I had a dream about her the other night in which she said ‘You’re a good girl, really, Julie’ and gave me a pork pie, which is odd as I’m a pescatarian. Anyway, I’m sure she meant well.
The Queen always meant well. From the young woman, almost still a girl, who took to the throne without complaint or cavil, to the frail old lady still determined to do her duty even as Death put his hand on her birdlike shoulder. Does King Charles mean well? He certainly makes a big show of doing so. But I can’t help thinking that he is tremendously vain man who believes that we are here principally as his audience. The Queen was the opposite; she’d have disappeared with her dogs and horses had her sense of duty not got in the way.
Starting with the hideous temper tantrum over the leaky fountain pen and going right up to the Christmas speech, which Alexander Larman wrote of here, this has not been a happy rule, nor a very glorious one. It’s rather like what has happened with the Labour government – all those years waiting to get hold of the glittering prize, and then seeming really not to know what to do with it. So in the absence of direction forward, you commission a vulgar film about how wonderful you’ve always been.
If the Queen is looking down from above, the odds are that she is shaking her head and hoping fervently that – like Royal Family – this film gets locked away pronto as soon as William ascends to the throne.
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