Leaving The Show

Saturday, 11 January 2020

A downed airliner. Australia on fire. A climate emergency that threatens whole populations with starvation or inundation. So what are the big headlines in all the papers? A young man has decided he no longer wishes to work for the family firm and that he and his wife want to be ‘financially independent’. This would normally qualify as the C-plot on an especially quiet week in Albert Square. It would normally be a matter of complete indifference to anyone whose hobbies don’t include watching paint dry or collecting used staples. This isn’t just any young married couple though, is it? We’re talking two of the biggest stars leaving The Royal Show.

After all, isn’t it just a couple of years ago that we had the big special? You know - the one set in Windsor Castle with the flamboyant preacher? And haven’t we been kept in touch with all the big moments of their lives? From Harry growing his beard to Meghan falling out with her family? This can’t be happening, right? Not just when bumbling old Uncle Andrew turns out to have been a bit pervy. Surely, it’s a plot device just before the drums beat for the closing credits.

Honestly, I can’t blame Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle for wanting out of all this. I can’t blame them for wanting to be out of a life where they have become, in a sense, public property. I can’t blame them - especially a young man whose mother, when he was twelve years old, died in a car crash pursued by paparazzi - for wanting to ‘step back’ from the media circus that surrounds the royal family. A media circus that is whipped into a further frenzy every time anything happens among the cast of the show that might involve a hospital, a holiday or a courtroom.

So good luck to them both! They want to be ‘financially independent’? Good. I could come over all curmudgeonly and point out that as she is a successful actress and he inherited millions from his mother and his grandmother, they won’t be embarking on penury, but I won’t. If they want to be ‘financially independent’ of folk who barely earn enough to put a roof over the heads of their families and keep them fed, but enough to pay tax, I’m up for that. 

What puzzles me is that the rest of Harry’s family are ‘reported to be’ so put out about it. Especially Charles. What father doesn’t want his children to be financially independent? I’m sure I do. And what father doesn’t want his children to want to be financially independent? Ditto. What is the problem here? The chances of Harry Windsor succeeding to the throne are right up there with Raith Rovers winning the Scottish League, so why shouldn’t he carve out another career?

Maybe the problem is the fear that if someone in Harry’s position leaves the gilded circle and becomes an ordinary person like you or me (though, of course, with a considerably healthier bank balance) the rest of us might come to realise that that is what he has always been - an ordinary person. Then we might start to wonder why he has been treated so differently from the rest of us. Why his wedding was broadcast to the nation and why his family snapshots are ‘shared’ with the nation. Why his mistakes and mis-steps become matters for public judgement.

Heavens to Betsy! We might start to wonder why we continue to watch The Royal Show and continue to fund it. We might start to think, “You know what? If we can do without the Duke of Sussex, maybe we can do without  the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex as well”. Maybe we might start to look at the ratings and ask if it’s worth continuing to pay the licence fee. That would never do, would it?

After all, we are told, the The Royal Show brings in so much money for the country. Trouble is, as far as I can make out, nobody’s sure how much that is. Sure, people come to London and say they want to see the Queen but the truth is that they almost never do. A gilded coach with a mechanical arm might suffice. According to the Glasgow Herald today Robert Burns brings in £200 million for the Scottish economy, and he’s been dead for two hundred years. Tourists from across the world tour the palace of Versailles in their millions and it’s been 170 years since France had a king. People come for the history.

“But,” people tell me, “the Queen has done such a great job.” Yeah. Maybe she has. I admit to a soft spot for Betty. Then again, by all accounts, Albert Pierrepoint was a very good hangman, but that didn’t mean that we kept on hanging people. Maybe, with the departure of two big cast members the time has come to cancel the UK’s longest running show.