Royal watch

This is the week we almost drowned in Jubilee programmes. Sadly, many of these were unavailable to reviewers, possibly because to criticise such a programme would itself amount to lèse-majesté, or perhaps they just hadn’t finished the edit. But I doubt we’ve missed much. This weekend BBC1 (Friday) was running A Jubilee Tribute to the Queen, presented by Prince Charles. Maybe he’s said that it’s all very well banging on about her sense of duty, but it didn’t do much for family life, and he still can’t get over how, after six months touring the Commonwealth, she famously didn’t kiss her little boy but shook his hand. I doubt it. The royal family are their own greatest fans, as you can see at Balmoral, where the grounds are crammed with memorials to dead kings, queens, princes, etc.

The same evening, ITV has Elizabeth: Queen, Wife, Mother presented by Alan Titchmarsh. If his previous encounter with Prince Charles is anything to go by, it will not be in the tradition of Jeremy Paxman. Titchmarsh’s style reminds me of an Edgar Allan Poe story I have just made up, called The Dog, in which the hero is shackled to the floor of a dungeon while a very friendly labrador licks his face, and licks, and goes on
licking…

The TV people have an insoluble problem. If the Queen isn’t some distant, unknowable, godlike figure, there’s no point in having her. At the same time we are desperate to feel that they’re all just like us, as much Royle family as Royal Family. Meeting the Queen in an informal setting is, apparently, one of the commonest dreams British people have, and Sky Arts 1 rather nimbly nipped in with Walking the Dogs (Thursday), based on the 1982 incident when Michael Fagan got into her bedroom.