THE Graham Norton Show The couch isn’t a place any of us associate with “normal guys.” Most Friday nights, it hosts the world’s most famous people, usually in surreal combinations – Stormzy and Dame Judi Dench, Matthew Perry and Miriam Margolyes – who, rather than trying to appear identifiable, revel in their fame, tell scandalous stories and generally bask in unapologetic showbiz.
It was perhaps an unexpected choice for a surprise appearance by Prince William. Kensington Palace is trying hard to make him seem like “an average millennial dad” as much as possible, so that we forget his lineage or his privileges or any other drama associated with his family and decide that, perhaps, the monarchy has a future after all. Wouldn’t that mean deflecting something as brazen as Graham Norton?
I’m afraid I have to report that it was a triumph. He emerged, before a stunned crowd, to sit alongside Cate Blanchett, Hannah Waddingham and Robert Irwin (Steve’s son, and equally passionate about “fine” crocs), ambassadors for his Earthshot Prize, which each year recognizes five contributors to environmentalism.
“I was supposed to see the WI,” was his pointed introduction – kudos to whoever armed him with that – and it was a breeze from there: self-deprecating, kind, generous, as relaxed as we’ve ever seen him and with surprisingly good comic timing. When news of the appearance broke on Friday morning, most had assumed it would be a brief cameo to win the award – in fact, he stayed for a whole hour, and while promoting Earthshot with genuine passion and pride, he also managed to marvel at another guest’s near-nude photo shoot with a python, and kicked someone out of the red chair.
It would have been very difficult not to find him endearing. He talked about Ross Kemp on Famous traitorsabout how his friends got him into Aston Villa “clearly thinking they’d get free tickets later, and I think it probably worked”, about loving films that are “deep” and “a bit different”, then being named Christopher Nolan (blessed), and about trying to get Travis Kelce out of his family selfie with Taylor Swift. I especially laughed when Norton asked the prince if it hurt him to spend his life posing for photo ops. “It’s a privilege to be able to operate the popcorn machine wherever I go,” was the wry response.
The Graham Norton Show The target audience is so broad that it was neither an attempt to pander to monarchists (there was really no royal conversation, other than stating the obvious about his extraordinary life and work) nor an aggressive and obvious attempt to win over critics.
It was, however, the perfect place to demonstrate how likeable he is, so that anyone watching passively, slumped on their couch, might think, “if we’re going to have a king, we might as well be him,” or even more powerfully, “seems like a nice guy, different from the rest,” which made him a PR genius.
It’s probably no coincidence that, a week later, Prince Harry also gave an interview – a profile with the American. GQin which he returns to the subjects of mourning, his mother, his humanitarian work, his “escape” from the United Kingdom and his desire for reconciliation with his father and brother. It’s the kind of raw, anything goes exposure that we expect from him now, and perhaps once thought we wanted, after centuries of tradition telling the royal family to stay silent.
Unfortunately, this has long felt like repeating the same old grievances, and increasingly like a desperation for relevance. And that worked in William’s favor. Rather than “saying everything” after “telling everything,” he instead presents himself as looking optimistically toward the future, making fools of himself and doing crocodile impressions. I refuse to be fooled by the engine of monarchy, to be manipulated by the puppeteers of its publicity, but I have somehow come to believe that William is truly different from the rest. I can’t believe how well this worked.
Gn entert
