CHRISTOPHER STEVENS review TV: This assassination attempt on …
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: This assassination attempt on Prince Andrew misses its target
Published: 00:00, 2 May 2023 | Updated: 00:06, 2 May 2023
Andrew: The Problem Prince
Rating:
Who poured soap suds in the palace fountain? Who twiddled the royal telly aerial so that Her Majesty couldn't watch the racing? Just Andrew, that's who!
Hard to believe now, when he's so reviled, that simply showing his face at the wheel of a Range Rover is enough to provoke a fresh flare-up of condemnation -- but the Dirty Old Duke of York was once Britain's favourite naughty schoolboy.
Andrew: The Problem Prince (Ch4) sets out in a two-part documentary to explain how the former second-in-line to the throne became a national liability and laughing stock.
But the unintended consequence is to remind us that, far from being a bully and thick as cold porridge as we are constantly told, the duke can be an effortless charmer.
He is so much a figure of general loathing, so far beyond the pale, that he didn't even feature in Sunday's Coronation special edition of The Windsors.
Andrew is accused, of course, of much more disturbing behaviour. But this documentary didn't get into that, becoming bogged down instead with a line-by-line account of negotiations between Newsnight 'bookers' and Andrew's PR staff, prior to the 2019 interview with Emily Maitlis
This was so forgettable that, by the end of the hour, I was left only with a vague sense that Andy was a more likeable bloke than I'd remembered
The mere thought of him is considered so offensive, we should probably blank out his name: 'P****e A*****'.
So it's bizarre to see him on the Wogan show in 1985, reducing presenter Selina Scott to incoherent blushes as he pretends not to know what she's talking about when she refers to his 'Randy Andy' nickname.
He'd served in the Falklands, where he flew helicopters as a decoy for Argentine missiles, and saved sailors from the burning decks of ships. 'I was the junior of the junior,' he said frankly of his wartime role, 'I was cannon fodder.'
His commanding officer confirmed that he was expendable -- 'He was not the heir, he was the spare.' Compare that to the tasteless bragging of today's spare, Prince Harry, who claimed in his autobiography to keep a tally of enemy troops killed.
It was half an hour before this profile uncovered anything to use in evidence against Andrew, and that was only a tendency to live beyond his means.
A former diplomat declared himself to be shocked that, arriving as a trade envoy in the Middle East 20 years ago, the prince brought his own valet, and the valet brought an ironing board.
What extravagance!
Has this overindulged royal profligate never heard of the Corby trouser press?
Andrew is accused, of course, of much more disturbing behaviour. But this documentary didn't get into that, becoming bogged down instead with a line-by-line account of negotiations between Newsnight 'bookers' and Andrew's PR staff, prior to the 2019 interview with Emily Maitlis.
Only viewers with an obsessive interest in office admin could possibly need this much detail, including reconstructions of Emily and her producer walking along corridors in Buckingham Palace in high heels.
This was so forgettable that, by the end of the hour, I was left only with a vague sense that Andy was a more likeable bloke than I'd remembered.
This cannot have been the intention of Channel 4 bosses but, as the duke himself knows, you can't always predict how a TV show will play out.
Clive Myrie's Italian Road Trip
Rating:
Clive Myrie must have imagined his Italian Road Trip (BBC2) would make him look adventurous, cosmopolitan and easy-going.
Unluckily, and I wouldn't have guessed this, he comes across as a bit of a bore when he's off duty.
Visiting an olive grove, or staying in one of Matera's cave houses, Clive tends to make vacuous remarks. 'If these walls could talk,' he murmured.
And as he swept up olives, he joshed, 'Just when I thought it was oil over...'
Later, peeling away layers of history, he added, 'For me, Italy is like a giant onion.' Have a glass of limoncello, Clive.
It's made from giant lemons.
Clive Myrie must have imagined his Italian Road Trip (BBC2) would make him look adventurous, cosmopolitan and easy-going
Unluckily, and I wouldn't have guessed this, he comes across as a bit of a bore when he's off duty