The Windsors: Endgame Review: A panto version of the Channel 4 TV series
A panto version of the Channel 4 TV series featuring just three of the small screen cast - Harry Enfield as a bumbling Prince Charles, Tom Durant-Pritchard as a pussy-whipped Harry and Matthew Cottle as puppyish Edward ("Twelfth in line to the throne after Princess Eugenie but before Danny Dyer"), this lacks the satirical sting of the original.
The Royal Family has become immune to parodies from Spitting Image to Mike Bartlett’s Charles III so this will be water off a mallard’s back to them.
But they might have been more amused if the writers Bert Tyler-Moore and the late George Jeffrie (who died shortly after completing the script) hadn’t aimed for the easy targets.
With a plot that involves Charles becoming King after the Queen’s abdication, Camilla’s insistence on a return to feudal society and Andrew’s little problem with A Man Called Epstein it has been updated but downgraded.
Well dressed in regard to sets and costumes this has a couple of highlights – a well-choreographed Matrix-style fight between Meghan (Crystal Condie) and Kate (Kara Tointon) and Camilla’s song Diana delivered by Tracy-Ann Oberman in full Wicked Witch of the Windsors-by-marriage mode. These moments aside, it’s witless drivel.