The Prince Charles Letters by David Stubbs Page B

taken it on board. In fact, it has become rather a joke with my staff. I say things to them like, ‘All right, you grovelling little bastards! I need my septic tank draining promptly,’ or, ‘See you, grovelling bastard, my shoelaces won’t do themselves up, you know!’ It’s been several days and they haven’t tired of it yet. We need humour of your sort in order that we don’t get above ourselves.

    Grovellingly yours!
    HRH The Prince of Wales

    Billy Connolly
    Sydney
    Australia
    13 January 1995

    Dear Billy

    Jolly good to have you over the other weekend, ‘laddie’! I have a feeling we are destined to become terrific ‘pals’. It may well be that some will revile you as a ‘toady’, particularly those of your countrymen of a Jacobin bent, for consorting with the likes of oneself. Ignore them – they are probably jealous! More than likely, they wish it was they, and not you, who had the privilege of being present at the slideshow presentation of my visit to the National Fruit Board.
    Incidentally, I appreciate you were a little tired and had to retire early, two hours into the presentation, but you see, that isn’t actually done in one’s presence. Has anyone had a word with you? They probably will in due course.

    Your dear chum
    HRH The Prince of Wales

    Rory Bremner
    c/o Channel 4
    Charlotte Street
    London
    England
    17 July 1996

    Dear Mr Bremner

    I hope you don’t think I’m ‘taking’ a liberty but as one with a ‘Footlights’ pedigree, I wonder if I might submit for inclusion on your show a sketch written by oneself and rather ‘taking the rise’ out of oneself? It goes as follows:

    (SCENE: The pantry, Buckingham Palace, in the small hours. It’s late at night and PRINCE CHARLES, in a dressing gown, sneaks quietly in and makes straight for the bread bins, opening each in turn. As he does so, HM THE QUEEN, also in a dressing gown, appears at the pantry door.)
    QUEEN: What the devil is one doing?
    CHARLES: I’m looking for a roll.

    (Laughter)

    The role/roll pun will work better aurally than on paper, I’m confident. It’s intended more as a ‘rib-tickler’ – so much satire is designed to wound nowadays.

    Yours, in comedy
    HRH The Prince of Wales

    Rory Bremner
    c/o Channel 4
    Charlotte Street
    London
    England
    30 July 1996

    Dear Mr Bremner

    I’m sure by now you’ve received, and had a wry chuckle at the sketch I submitted to you the other day. However, I must urge you to stick precisely to the wording and not be tempted to ‘improvise’ around it. I say this because I decided, by way of a parlour game at our most recent family gathering, to give the sketch a try-out with various members of my family playing the roles. My mother, HM The Queen, played herself but refused to say ‘one’, instead insisting on ‘you’ and claiming it was less ‘hackneyed’.
    Edward played myself, first of all. For a theatre man, my brother was, I’m afraid, hopeless. Not only did he linger a beat coming into the punchline but he delivered it as follows: ‘I’m looking for a bread roll.’ Needless to say, he missed the sense of the line and I was the recipient of some jolly unjust blank looks.
    My sister Anne then took a turn at playing the Queen. This time I played myself without a hitch. However, the lines went as follows:

    ANNE (AS QUEEN): What the devil are you doing?
    CHARLES (AS CHARLES): What the devil is ONE doing? I’m looking for a roll!
    ANNE (AS QUEEN): Well, that’s the only roll you’ll be given around here while I live and breathe.

    At which point everyone roared, but you see Anne had missed the point. Mine was the punchline, not that thing she made up. She’d stolen my thunder and in so doing torpedoed the entire sketch.
    Finally, I decided to play HM The Queen, if only to get her line right. This time, Prince Philip (my father) played oneself:

    CHARLES (AS QUEEN): What the devil is one doing?
    PHILIP (AS CHARLES): Well, there are three people in my marriage and