On Archewell Audio, Harry and Meghan’s new podcast, ‘love wins’, ‘change really is possible’, and ‘the courage and the creativity and the power and the possibility that’s been resting in our bones shakes loose and emerges as our new skin’. There’s no room for Christmas — the first episode dropped as a ‘Holiday Special’ — but there is for kindness, compassion and more than a few bromidic interjections of ‘So true!’
The podcast purports to ‘spotlight diverse perspectives and voices’ and ‘build community through shared experiences, powerful narratives, and universal values’. Turn down the volume and what you’ll actually hear is the most tremendous tussle between Englishness and California dreaming. There are no prizes for guessing which comes out on top.
The contest begins in the trailer, where the Duchess of Sussex encourages her husband to introduce the series, conceding him a point for his ‘really nice’ accent. ‘What, Archewe… Archewell Audio?’ stumbles the Duke. ‘I mean,’ flirts Meghan. ‘Really?’ Harry replies, with a hesitancy worthy of Hugh Grant. Archewell, the couple’s brand name, may derive in part from the Greek for ‘beginning’ or ‘dominion’, but it more readily evokes the name of their 20-month-old son. Archie speaks his first public words at the end of the episode: ‘Happy’ (American accent) ‘New’ (English accent) ‘Year’ (who knows).
The only thing missing was humour. Women like laughing as well as sparring
The association between the baby and the brand does the couple few favours. What works for the Kardashians doesn’t necessarily sit well with English sensibilities. Curiously, too, it puts the Sussexes at the centre of a project dedicated to amplifying (a good Archewell word) more diverse voices.
Other people’s stories, they say, can remind you of stories about yourself. One wonders what life memories were stirred in them by heroic José, who uses food to ‘empower communities’, or George the Poet, or tennis player Naomi Osaka, who joined Elton John and James Corden in recording audio diaries of their year.
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