‘Toe-curlingly bad’ video of Prince William emerges

The Prince of Wales is set to appear all over UK TV screens – but the teaser makes for incredibly awkward viewing for one major reason.

The Royal Family and TV cameras are a match made in … erm, are you quite sure, your royal highness? Like inviting Qatari sheiks gleefully bearing plastic shopping bags stuffed with used readies round for tea, it never works out that well. (True story, that one).

Clearly, no one has told Prince William this fact, or he refused to listen as he slapped on another layer of Boots’ Barely There concealer and readied himself for his close up.

This week, the trailer for his new TV series, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness is here and, oh dear.

Watching it is something of a squirmy experience for all the wrong reasons.

Prince William: We Can End Homelessness
Coming Soon to @ITV and @ITVX

An exclusive ITV1 documentary which follows the launch and first year of @HomewardsUK and its work to demonstrate that it’s possible to end [e-mail]/fQPWUrhwX8

— ITV (@ITV) October 13, 2024

Superficially, it might seem like there’s nothing wrong with the 30-second teaser. In it, he nods, he listens, he hugs. There is an apron involved. See? He’s getting down to business, those soft hands of his getting, if not dirty, then at least minorly dusty.

But what makes this clip so cringey is that nearly every single shot features the heir to the throne giving us a range of emotions, from concerned to warmly supportive to slightly constipated. I’ve seen fascist documentaries that looked less baldly propagandistic.

Disclaimer time. At issue here is not the actual work he is trying to do. The 43-year-old, you see, is on a valiant quest to end homelessness. As a working royal, he could just turn up, give some impassioned speeches, shine a medium-bulbed light on the cause and be done with it, all in time for The Archers. After all, that’s all that’s jotted down in the royal job description.

‘Superficially, it might seem like there’s nothing wrong with the 30-second teaser’. Picture: Twitter/iTV

‘But what makes this clip so cringey is that nearly every single shot features the heir to the throne giving us a range of emotions, from concerned to warmly supportive to slightly constipated’. Picture: Twitter/iTV

But that is not good enough for Diana, Princess of Wales’ son, and a man with a weather eye on the future of the monarchy.

When it comes to homelessness, the prince is currently applying the sort of muscularity and directness that the Windsors normally reserve for laden bar trolleys and freebie holidays on the Med and is, gasp, actually doing something about it.

Last year, he launched a project called Homewards in six areas around the UK aimed at practically tackling homelessness, personally backing the initiative to the tune of $5.85 million in start-up funding. Then, in February, William announced he was building 24 homes which will provide temporary accommodation on his Duchy of Cornwall land.

The rub here isn’t the work he’s doing – it’s the degree, the temperature of the self-promotion he’s doing around it. He isn’t just shining a light here, but directing one of those Batman-like spotlights on himself at the same time.

If the Homelessness doco ends up anything like the trailer sets out, it’s in high danger of coming across as a queasily transparent exercise designed to plump up the prince’s image.

When Homelessness airs, I’m sure the prince will attract plenty of applause for his work and that it will get some reasonable reviews, the whole exercise ultimately a successful one.

Let’s be realistic, if not cynical, here. William’s job is not just to do Duty and Service during office hours, but to also sell the concept of a hereditary monarchy as a useful and valuable thing to younger generations. Gotta forever stave off any of that guillotine on the Mall nonsense those Frenchies once got up to.

‘The rub here isn’t the work he’s doing – it’s the degree, the temperature of the self-promotion he’s doing around it’. Picture: Twitter/iTV

The doco is ‘in high danger of coming across as a queasily transparent exercise designed to plump up the prince’s image’. Picture: Twitter/iTV

This in turn does demand that Buckingham and Kensington Palaces do highlight the work their principals are doing. But it’s a question of degrees. And even this knowledge doesn’t make William’s flagrant selling of himself any less toe-curlingly bad to have to watch before breakfast.

It’s also worth introducing the Harry Question here too – imagine if this doco had been done by the Duke of Sussex, some lengthy prime time bit of shameless self-puffery about what a bang up job he is doing on, say, mental health or support for veterans? The mocking and the pillorying and the “how dare hes” would be so loud and gleeful that Piers Morgan would be so wound up, half of Fleet Street would need a nerve tonic.

We have a real gooses and ganders situation here.

Finding the balance between doing the work because it’s the right thing and the work handily burnishing one’s image is a fine one.

The last week has seen a shining example of how to do this, courtesy of his good lady wife.

Last week, Kate, the Princess of Wales joined William for an emotional trip to Southport to meet the families of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, who were murdered during a Taylor Swift dance class in July. Later, the Waleses met with first responders who had attended the traumatic scene.

Imagine if this doco had been done by the Duke of Sussex? Picture: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP

Chief Fire and Rescue Service Officer Phil Garrigan described what happened next: “The Princess of Wales broke off and came back into the building to give a hug to the people who responded, because she could see the emotion in them”.

These hugs were not given anywhere near a camera. This was a touching, deeply human gesture not undertaken for the purposes of PR.

The litmus test in all of this is pretty straightforward. Is the attention being kept on the cause, or is it being sucked up by the person with a coronet? Is it about the work, or overly egregiously selling yourself doing the work?

At least William can rest easy knowing that the real ignominious bar for royal TV outings is in hell thanks to Prince Edward’s 1986 It’s A Royal Knockout.

I’m not sure what it would begin to take to beat that, but the words “Prince Andrew” and “Love Island” come to mind.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles

Originally published as ‘Toe-curlingly bad’ video of Prince William emerges