Sticklers for detail might have been confused by the opening of William and Kate – the Movie (Channel 5, Sunday), when Prince William’s arrival at St Andrews was introduced by an aerial shot of Christ Church, Oxford. But then, sticklers for detail were never likely to be satisfied by an 87-minute TV movie about the Royal family made for the Lifetime cable network in the US.
This was a St Andrews which its students called ‘school’, where they lived in ‘dorms’. These were rooms with so much dark wood paneling and so many Tudor beams that it would have been no surprise to see Diana Dors pop out in full Hammer Horror costume. And while this movie was ‘based on true events’, it certainly wasn’t based on true hairdos or soft furnishings.
Prince William met Kate Middleton, but Kate had a boyfriend. William didn’t like St Andrews and threatened to leave. But William was thwarted by his father, an enjoyably articulate Prince Charles played with evident relish by Ben Cross. ‘There are always repercussions when one changes one’s mind,’ warned Charles darkly, and the wooden paneling creaked with deeper meaning.
Even when William and Kate properly started going out, they were still so constantly surrounded by their perky gang of university friends that the atmosphere was more like Dawson’s Creek than Clarence House. At the famed fashion show, as Kate strutted down the catwalk in her revealing outfit, the scriptwriter finally let loose with the kind of lightly whipped banter that should have been peppered throughout.
‘She’s hot,’ said William’s blokey mate.
‘She’s hot,’ said William.
‘I just said that,’ chided blokey mate.
‘It’s worth repeating,’ responded William firmly.
And so we were whisked off into a romantic world of champagne and private planes, with William looking more like the captain of a winning team on The Apprentice than the heir to the throne. Of course, Wills and Kate had eventually to break up. But even then Kate mourned, lonely on her sofa, in full pearlescent eye make-up.
It was never quite clear why Wills ‘needed space’. But Kate, every inch the Lifetime heroine, pulled herself together at lightning speed and turned into not only a career woman but a charity fundraising ninja. Much, in fact, like Wills’s dear departed mother, and this was where the script really clunked. In the pivotal scene, between Wills and Charles, Wills vowed never to let anyone he loved be as lonely and lost as Charles had let Diana be. It was a different era, said Charles helplessly.
But by this point, we all knew that Kate wouldn’t wait much longer. She would be loved and protected – and, most importantly, proposed to against the backdrop of an African sunset. Unlike the real Royal family, romantic Lifetime movies always come with an all-American happy ending.
Reviewed by Niel Midgley
Royal Wedding Souvenirs
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