An Andrea Bocelli/Bryn Terfel duet at least introduced singers for whom the king has publicly expressed some fondness. You clung to such small mercies, and the passing moments of old-school showbiz competence. Better was the collaboration between the Royal Ballet, Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal College of Art, featuring new Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa alongside Mei Mac as Romeo and Juliet. And you don’t, surely, recruit Lang Lang just to accompany Nicole Scherzinger on one of “Mulan’s” duller ballads. A sequence involving the so-called “Commonwealth Choir” – performing Zoomed-in karaoke to Steve Winwood’s enduring “Higher Love” – didn’t exactly translate on screen. More ambitious interactions tended to fall flat. Wildlife presenter Hamza Yassin even revealed the king has a frog named after him: “What a handsome fella!” The frog looked no more or less handsome than any other frog. Even before Prince William bounded on stage to sing his dad’s praises, the underlying message was clear: Charles is Great. Scene changes were covered with “Did You Know…?” segments in which random celebrities reeled off notionally fun (but largely familiar) Charles facts: the green credentials, the children’s books, the watercolors. Yet despite a high-profile fly-by from Tom Cruise – inviting the king to be his wingman – so much of the show felt trivial and unmemorable. suffers a foil shortage in coming weeks, it will be part Brexit, part Perry.) (No sign, however, of Queen’s Brian May, such a stalwart of previous royal shindigs that Channel 4’s expert royal satire “The Windsors” could claim – in its recent Coronation Special – that the guitarist had taken up permanent residence among the squirrels on Buckingham Palace’s roof.) Perry, importing tried-and-tested showstoppers “Roar” and “Firework,” looked the part in a flowing golden dress suggesting a Disney truffle wrapper. Sprayed-on pomp and ceremony abounded: a 200-piece orchestra, sweeping crane shots, Union Jacks in every hand, and a shifting lightshow illuminating Windsor Castle itself. You half expected to find King Charles and Queen Camilla seated in rotating chairs, behind illuminated buzzers. Yet right through to Take That’s promotion over Katy Perry in the headline slot, the result felt cringingly parochial, indistinguishable in its content from the half-time slot on a Saturday night talent show. MC Hugh Bonneville, pausing between dad gags, reassured us that 100 countries were watching globally. 20,000 people – charity volunteers, NHS workers and winners of a public ticket lottery – had been invited to join the royals in the grounds of Windsor Castle, under a stage resembling a giant H.G. UTC offsets in diagonally striped areas are not whole hours.Notionally, this was a major event.
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