by David Stubbs
Joanna Lumley
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Television Centre
Wood Lane
London
England
19 August 2009
Dear Miss Lumley
We have met before at a Palace function. I vividly recall remarking to you that you looked, ‘Absolutely fabulous’. I’d been advised by my wife to avoid saying this because, in her words, ‘She probably gets it about half a dozen times a day’ but I pressed on anyway and the silvery laugh with which you graced the compliment assured me that my original instincts had been sound.
I must say, I’ve been most impressed by the way you’ve ‘stuck up’ for the Gurkhas in the face of bureaucratic high-handedness and the way you publicly took down that junior Minister a peg or two. I have to admit to a frisson of envy: if I were to be scolded by anyone, Miss Lumley, I should very much like it to be you. I think I would find the experience both stimulating and instructive. Have I been forward? If so, then by all means scold me the next time our paths cross!
Sincerely, and meaningfully yours
HRH The Prince of Wales
Michael McIntyre
BBC Television Centre
Wood Lane
London
England
2 September 2009
Dear Mr McIntyre
I make it my business to keep abreast of trends in the light entertainment world and your name came to my attention as ‘one to watch’.
In order to assist me in acquainting myself with you, I wonder if you could answer the following questions for my records; questions I suppose anyone might wish to ask of you: who are you and just why are you famous?
Yours, &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
Emily Bishop
aka Eileen Derbyshire
Granada Studios
Manchester
England
3 January 2010
Dear Miss Bishop
As the ‘Street’ enters its sixth decade, you must know that I think of you as a constant in my life, the sort of person who would lend a sympathetic ear to a fellow. I know the character Emily and your late husband Ernest were without issue, so to speak, but I do regard you as a motherly type.
I wished to provide Emily with some food for thought: there you are in Lancashire, in the midst of some of the most magnificent, rolling, rural landscape our country has to offer, but few, if any, of the plots involve characters outward bound, taking in the scenery and displacing some of the soot from their lungs. Instead they’re mostly hopping in and out of bed with one another.
Is there anything you can do about this? Perhaps you and Ken Barlow could work in league to have a word with the ‘powers that be’. I would be happy to provide any backing you require, lending credibility to your cause.
Yours, always
Charles
Helen Mirren
c/o Equity
Head Office
Guild House
Upper St Martins Lane
London
England
10 January 2010
Dear Miss Mirren
I must say, despite its somewhat poignant subject matter, I greatly enjoyed The Queen and thought it largely a success. You yourself got my mother down to a tee – a grand old institution, but a bit distant and not always in tune with modern mores. The fellow who played my father, Prince Philip, was good, too – blunt to a fault, apt to say the wrong thing. And my grandmother: yes, liked a gin. Perfectly observed.
You’ll note I said ‘largely’ a success. May I take issue with the fellow who played myself? He depicts me as a self-absorbed, clipped, ineffectual sort in the chronic throes of some sort of emotional constipation. Well off the mark! It’s not a portrait I recognise at all, nor do my staff. Could you bring this up with the actor in question, suggest he might perhaps try some other profession?
Yours, &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
Tom Cruise
Hollywood
California
United States of America
12 January 2011
Dear Mr Cruise
Well, what with The King’s Speech and The Queen, it’s inevitable that at some point they’ll get around to making a film about my own life. In which case, I should like to exercise the Royal prerogative and demand you play the role of myself – from the 1990s onwards that is, for my earlier years I should require a younger actor.
As for my wife – Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall – who do you think? Meryl Streep or Glenn Close? I leave the final choice with you, prior to my ultimate approval.
Incidentally, I for one no more believe those absurd rumours of your belonging to the ‘Scientology’ cult any more than I do the other rumours circulating about you. I mean, spaceships, man – come along now!
Yours, in eager anticipation
HRH The Prince of Wales
Colin Firth
Shepperton Studios
London
England
14 February 2011
Dear Mr Firth
I should like to congratulate you, first of all, on your portrait of my late grandfather. I’d be obliged if you could pass on to the filmmakers my appreciation of the discretion they showed in depicting the role of the Royal Family.
Between you and me, Grandmamma wasn’t a fraction as fond of Churchill as The King’s Speech makes out. Indeed, both Grandmamma and my grandfather were squarely behind Halifax, who historians consider a bit of an appeaser. Still, a bit of Vaseline smeared across the historical lens never hurts, especially when it comes to conveying the essential message that the Royal Family are in times of crisis the backbone, heart, soul and conscience of the nation.
In that spirit, and assuming you are currently sniffing around for a ‘follow-up’, could I press you to take advantage of the current vogue for all things Royal and consider a précis I jotted down yesterday, provisionally entitled Triumph of a Prince?:
Set during the Falklands War in 1982, it depicts actual events – a nation plunged into war looks for words of encouragement from the heir to the throne. Margaret Thatcher, a close friend of the Royal Family, urgently seeks his counsel. He, however, is in crisis – unsure of his role, seeking spiritual guidance. This he receives from his mentor Laurens van der Post, and in the final scene, he makes a speech, which although apolitical, rouses the nation and turns the tide of war. A few liberties taken, some might say, but essentially truthful about the King-to-be, the land, its people.
What do you think? I’d suggest you play me, but you are a little old. Would you care for the role of van der Post?
Humbly, yours
HRH The Prince of Wales
Charlie Sheen
Universal Studios
Hollywood
California
USA
2 March 2011
Dear Mr Sheen
I have been perusing some of your recent interviews. It appears you are currently living with two ‘prostitutes’. You also state as follows: ‘I’m tired of pretending I’m not special. I’m tired of pretending I’m not bitching. I’m tired of pretending I’m not some total [expletive deleted] rock star from Mars.’
It strikes me we have a great deal in common, you and I, we two Charlies. Both sons, so to speak, of our fathers: we are both sceptics about the so-called ‘truth’, open to the paranormal. I too tire of maintaining the pretence that I am basically none too dissimilar to the ‘ordinary chap’, even though it is necessary to do so for form’s sake. And while I do not regard myself as a ‘rock star from Mars’, I sometimes wonder if spiritually and perhaps even physically I derive from some higher realm of the cosmos. Like you, I get up a head of steam – gosh, hang it, I am searching for a role because that’s how I roll! You roll with me, or I’ll roll right over you! I’m Charlie and I’m high on myself. I’m high on Charlie. I’m the KING and I’ll melt your faces off!
Unlike you, however, I do try and keep these
sentiments ‘in check’ and I can’t say I approve of these prostitutes. Three of you, then – is that not a little overcrowded?
Yours, really ‘kicking backside’
HRH The Prince of Wales
Sir Bruce Forsyth
Strictly Come Dancing
c/o BBC Television Centre
London
England
13 June 2012
Dear Sir Bruce
‘Nice to write to you – to write to you, nice!’
First of all, permit me to congratulate you on your Knighthood. It feels odd, calling you ‘Sir Bruce’ – like ‘Sir Kevin’ or ‘Sir Gary’, somehow it doesn’t sit well. But with that thing you do with your fist to your head and so on you’ve earned it, so that’s that. Arise, Sir Bruce! Second, congratulations to you fellows on a terrific television programme – light entertainment at its best, which, were they not watching it, so many people would otherwise be completely wasting their time of a Saturday evening.
To brass tacks, however: I do feel that in laying open the deciding vote to the general public you highlight a grave constitutional danger – that when what my dear, departed grandmother affectionately dubbed ‘the teeming, grubby, stinking hordes’ are allowed to dictate things through a free vote, they come up with the most frightfully misguided decisions. I mean, John Sergeant, for Heaven’s sake? Does this not further highlight the dangers of an elective Republican state in this Kingdom of ours? What I mean to say is, they do keep getting it quite wrong, don’t they?
Perhaps in place of the present voting system we could have a committee set up by Royal Appointment, which would have the ultimate casting vote in order to arrive at more sensible decisions? And when this was shown to work well for determining who is chosen as prime minister, you might adopt such a system on Strictly Come Dancing.
Yours, I mean that most sincerely
(or was that the other fellow?)
HRH The Prince of Wales
The So-Called ‘Fourth Estate’: Broadcasters and Their Sort
Kelvin Mackenzie
The Sun
News International
Wapping
London
England
7 April 1988
Dear Mr Mackenzie
I wish to complain about the enormous number of breasts in your newspaper. Now it’s not that I object to breasts per se – on my travels across the Commonwealth I have been ‘jiggled’ at more times than you could shake a stick at by bare-breasted young ladies. This of course is entirely different: those girls were … that’s to say, it was entirely anthropological. It was once considered unthinkable for young women of our own native land to cavort publicly in that way until your paper came along.
Of course, you may claim such photographs are ‘popular’ with readers, but surely it must concern you that such pictures erode the calibre of your readership? If you want ‘birds’ in your paper, then why not run a series in the page-three slot on the dwindling numbers of the Dartford Warbler? Now that’s ‘hot’ news! ‘Phwooar!’
Yours, (I hope) with mutual ornithological fascination
HRH The Prince of Wales
Chris Evans
c/o Channel 4
Charlotte Street
London
England
5 August 1996
Dear Mr Evans
As you may know, I do look to keep constant surveillance over the goings-on in the country I am to rule, keeping a weather eye out for the great and the good, the movers and shakers, the up-and-the-coming, and what have you. I have noted your rapid rise to ‘DJ’ fame and felt it was high time I got to know you more, to see if there are ways in which we can work together as we move forward.
I had planned to invite you to Highgrove for one of my regular soirées, however I seem to have hit a snag and I was wondering if you were in a position to help me. It seems you are not liked among certain people. Indeed, you are intensely disliked. I mentioned your name as a possibility for my February soirée and within days, received three cancellations. On hearing you were to come to Highgrove, a member of my staff bowed her head, then shook it fiercely, and with a murmured apology, scuttled from the room.
How can this be, I wonder. What is it about you? I’m deuced if I can see it myself – you seem no different to the usual, nondescript talking heads one encounters on the ‘goggle-box’. If anything, your interviewing style is sycophantic to a fault. Is it your ginger hair, or your glasses, or perhaps the celebration of your vast wealth, your nasal, braying manner or self-obsession? Maybe your treatment of the underlings featured on your show? Is it that somehow you embody the acquisitive, greedy, gormlessly materialistic emptiness of our times?
As I say, this is idle speculation and it would help greatly in my ruminations if you were to sit at your desk and make a list, headed: ‘REASONS WHY I AM UNIVERSALLY HATED AND DESPISED’. I must say, should it to be drawn to my attention that I were loathed in the way you appear to be by some people, I would certainly find it helpful to carry out such an exercise myself.
Yours, in assistance
HRH The Prince of Wales
Jeremy Paxman
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
13 June 2000
Dear Mr Paxman
Reading between the lines, I rather get the impression that like me, you chafe to a large degree at the demeaning trivia of modern life. You yearn for some higher purpose suitable to your abilities and stature; you want to get past the endless round of daily headlines and those humdrum interviews you’re forced to conduct with shifty political functionaries and the like. You’re casting around for a serious role, a way of really ‘leaving your mark’.
Well, perhaps I can help. Following the success, a few years back, of It’s A Royal Knockout, I was thinking of setting up a similar event to be staged in my gardens at Highgrove – It’s A Royal University Challenge. I would head up a team of three from Trinity, my old college, while my brother Edward would lead up a team from Jesus. You would be quizmaster. I did give ‘first refusal’ to Bamber Gascoigne but he rather generously passed on the opportunity, saying you would be far more suitable for the task.
I’ve already got a team of local carpenters working on a facsimile of the University Challenge set. As on the television, there will be an upper and lower deck. I have ‘first dibs’ on the upper (I always preferred the top bunk bed at boarding school – fellows couldn’t drop things on to your face as you slept – spiders, worms, live rats) and the preference remains life-long. I’m having a stepladder installed on the side to help me get up and down – not so limber as I used to be!
I’ll leave you to set the questions. You know my specialities – van der Post, The Goons, horticulture, which I trust will be well represented. Quite honestly, I’m hoping to ‘wipe the floor’ with young Eddie! He doesn’t always afford to an older brother the respect that one deserves; he needs whittling down to size in a straight Battle of the Intellects. No favours, but all I urge is that with me, you don’t go in for any of that ‘C’mon, c’mon, hurry along now!’ stuff. It flusters me and I’d be liable to ‘dry up’, even when the answer’s on the tip of my ‘tongue’.
One of my staff will let you know which dates we have available.
Yours, finger on the buzzer
HRH The Prince of Wales
Jeremy Paxman
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
16 June 2000
Dear Mr Paxman
I still haven’t received a response to my letter of the 13th. I really am going to have to push you for an answer, you know.
Yours, &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
Jeremy Paxman
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
20 June 2
000
Dear Mr Paxman
Still no straight answer, man! Why the evasiveness? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter?
Yours &c
HRH The Prince of Wales
Jeremy Paxman
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
23 June 2000
Dear Mr Paxman
Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter?
HRH The Prince of Wales
Jeremy Paxman
c/o The British Broadcasting Corporation
Wood Lane
London
England
24 June 2000
Dear Mr Paxman
Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter? Did you receive a copy of my letter?
