King Charles III

'Mr Goold? Do come in. And you must be Mr Bartlett? Have you been to St James' Palace before?'

'We've never been invited.'

'How remiss of us. Of course, when the Lord Chamberlain's department had to approve every new play, we had theatre directors and playwrights popping in all the time to argue the toss. There were long arguments over bare nipples and rude words. Pansy, for example.  But we rarely see theatre people nowadays.  If we need to have their heads chopped off, we arrange for that to be done at the  the Tower. Joke.'

'We're used to violent death. It happens on stage all the time.'

'Of course.  I'm the Principal Private Secretary to Prince Charles, by the way. I hope we can agree this meeting will remain confidential.  We'd rather not see it in the Evening Standard, or all over the internet.  Of course, HRH doesn't actually go online himself. We do it for him.'

'Of course. How can we help?'

'Do you remember the Olympic opening ceremony?'

'Danny Boyle did a great job, didn't he?'

'Indeed. A complete reinvention of a somewhat tired concept. That's what we're looking for.'

'But the Olympics is over. It was a one-off.'

'We're planning something similar that needs a bit of experienced theatrical input. We had a blue sky thinking afternoon last week and your names were mentioned.'

Goold and Bartlett get out their diaries

'We're both quite busy. What date are we talking about?'

'That's the tricky bit. It could be in the next year. More likely in five years time, even ten years time. We can't say.  But we have to start planning early.'

Goold and Bartlett exchange a meaningful glance.

'You mean the next Coronation?'

'Right first time.  We looked at the script from 1953 and it looks very dated. For the 21st century, we need something a bit more accessible, more popular. We look very much to the future here.

'But why us?'

'We noticed that you're doing a play about the monarchy at the moment.  So we thought it might be very much up your street.'

'King Charles III.  At the Almeida, where I'm the new artistic director.  The first reviews are excellent.'

'Oh my goodness.  It's opened already?  Do you think HRH might like it?'

There is a nervous, Pinter-like pause.

'Possibly not.'

'Have you got Helen Mirren in it?  He's quite a fan. First saw her on stage in the sixties when she was a real sexpot.  He once told me he prefers her to his real mother.'

'Unfortunately not.  The play starts with the Queen's state funeral, so she doesn't appear.  But we have Charles, and Camilla, and William, and Kate and Harry.  They're all in it. And a Labour prime minister, and a Tory leader of the opposition who's not to be trusted.  The rest of the characters are royal aides, mostly.  There's a private secretary a bit like you.'

'I'm flattered.  And who plays HRH?'

'Tim Pigott-Smith.'

'I remember him from the Jewel in the Crown on TV.  He's very good.  So HRH is the hero?'

'He's the main character, the protagonist. I wouldn't say he's a hero, except in the tragic sense.'

'Oh dear.  Tell me more.'

'Well, he provokes a constitutional crisis by refusing to sign into law a bill passed by parliament. He dissolves the Commons and puts a tank outside Buckingham Palace. He's incredibly obstinate and petulant, always wants to get his way.  It all gets resolved in the end, largely by Kate, who emerges as the power behind the throne.  The monarchy survives but Charles doesn't get to wear the crown.'

'Ah. Uneasy lies the head, and all that?'

'Yes, we've borrowed a lot from Shakespeare.  He knew how to do kings and queens on stage, so we were inspired to use everything -- his language, his blank verse, his low-life scenes.  Harry visits a kebab shop, for example.'

'Do you have ghosts?'

'Yes, the ghost of Diana comes in two or three times.  Come and see the play, we can get you tickets.'

'Good god. I don't think we can advise HRH to go and see it. Particularly not if the Duchess of Cornwall appears on stage as well.  He'd have a fit. Harry's in it, you say.  Does he misbehave?

'Look, you can read all about it in this blog by John Morrison.  He seems to have really liked it.'

'Who's John Morrison?'

'He's just a theatre blogger, we gave him a free ticket.  But he used to be a lobby correspondent and he even wrote a book about constitutional reform.'

'What does he have to say?'

'Bartlett ignores the usual banal questions about the monarchy -- is it out of date, is it undemocratic, is too expensive, should it be elected, and so on -- and homes in on the risk to its future posed by Charles's prickly personality and his inability to follow his mother in staying above politics.  The new monarch plunges the insititution into crisis by refusing his assent to a bill to regulate the press. The issue isn't whether Charles is right or wrong, but the fact that he intervenes at all, imagining that his formal powers are real.  He has only himself to blame for his downfall.'

'Oh dear. What else does he say?'

'Pigott-Smith is superb in the role of the ever-agonised Charles, worried about being just "an empty vessel". and so are all the others. Goold shows what a terrific director he can be when he restrains his sometimes over-exuberant style. The design and music are excellent. Bartlett's choice of a Shakespearean idiom works very well, with echoes from Hamlet, Macbeth, the histories and other plays.  Generally the language is formal, with Kate addressing William as 'Husband'.  This enhances the comic effect when a hungover Harry declares 'I might head off if that's okay. I've got a headache' as soon as the royal funeral is over.'

'He is a real problem, that boy.  Does his girlfriend get a look-in?'

'Afraid not.  There's a subplot where his ghastly Sloane friends introduce him to an art student called Jess who's a republican and they fall in love.  Morrison says he would have liked to see a couple more scenes with Harry and Jess, who never seem to manage to be alone together for very long. But otherwise he thinks it's a great piece of theatre, extremely funny and likely to transfer to the West End.'

'The West End would be more suitable than Islington, perhaps. HRH doesn't really do Islington. But on second thoughts, I think we will have to drop the idea of getting tickets for the show.  HRH is not good at seeing the funny side of things.  And he can be very moody.  Thank you for coming in today.'

Goold and Bartlett shake his hand and prepare to leave

'And the coronation?'

'I think on second thoughts we'll have to find someone else.  What is Andrew Lloyd Webber doing these days?'