Launched off the back of her books charity, The Queen’s Reading Room, it has a host of literary guests – but Camilla herself is rarely heard
January 9, 2024 1:17 pm(Updated 1:58 pm)
If you thought we would be spared – if you’ll forgive the pun – from any more royal podcasts after the unfortunate demise of Meghan Markle’s Archetypes last year (the Sussexes “parted ways” with Spotify in June, or, to put it another way, they didn’t have their $20m contract renewed, or, to put it another way, the execs there thought they were “f**king grifters”), you were mistaken.
The palace has today launched a new podcast from Queen Camilla, The Queen’s Reading Room. Pass the popcorn, pour a glass of wine, get ready for some juicy insight into the life and psyche of the woman closest to our sovereign, the great guardian of our country…
Except you’d be mistaken there, too. Because far from introducing us to another side of Camilla, or allowing her personality to show, or really doing anything beyond allowing her to sit bolt upright on a chair and say words to the effect of “oh, yes, jolly good”, this is, as appears to be compulsory for all new podcasts, a show that consists of famous people recommending things that they like.
To be fair, that does include the Queen Consort – but not before half an hour of listening to the crime writer Ian Rankin waffle about what books he has, the bookshelves on which he stores them, and how he sometimes doesn’t have time to read, with the pay-off of the episode being the much-needed royal endorsement of a little-known series called Harry Potter.
The Queen’s Reading Room has sprung from Camilla’s charity of the same name, which began life as a book club on Instagram in 2021, during the pandemic, and has since become an organisation hoping to bring literature to a wider audience. The podcast is presented by Vicky Perrin, the chief executive of the charity, although “presented” is a bit of a stretch – really she just introduces each section of the podcast.
You expect each guest author – Rankin being the first – to be interviewed, but in fact they simply monologue, prompt questions having presumably been cut from the edit, with occasional interjections of courtly strings in place of dialogue. In this first episode you may find yourself drifting off, only to come to every five minutes or so when Rankin mentions Catch-22 again, or his love of Jilly Cooper.
All of which begs the question: what is the point of this podcast? The charity is a worthwhile venture, sure, but how does hearing about the reading habits of famous authors in any way further that cause?
The answer must be visibility and relevance for the royals – but when it comes down to it, the rarity with which Camilla actually appears means she seems more lofty and far-removed than ever, with Perrin (boarding-school posh but possibly not asparagus-only-with-your-left-hand posh) providing interlocution for us lowly subjects.
Perhaps those who are already royal fans will tune in, but it’s difficult to see how making The Queen’s Reading Room will do anything for those who aren’t. Although it has followed in Harry and Meghan’s footsteps by pivoting to a popular format among young people, it ends up achieving the opposite.
Future guests include veteran literary names like Joanna Lumley, David Baddiel and Frank Cottrell-Boyce; even though Elif Shafak and Bonnie Garmus, also on the bill for the future, might excite a different audience, it’s not unexpected enough to be a real draw. Really what people want is some semblance of “relatability”. Where Archetypes almost egregiously showcased Markle’s personality, with her having warm, “vulnerable” conversations with A-list celebrities who happened to be her friends, so far, The Queen’s Reading Room holds us at arm’s length.
It feels altogether like trying to shove the square peg of the monarchy into the round hole of new media – but, on the upside, if that image won’t force you to take out your AirPods and pick up a book, then I don’t know what will.
