Toothless
Mark Amory
Charles Charming's Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne Clive James (Cape pp. 103, £4.95).
In Budd Schulberg's novel about Hollywood life, What Makes Sammy Run?, a film is initiated by someone saying (as I remember) 'Dietrich Tracy The Titanic. Need I say more?' Even now he needn't. It is still possible to imagine the whole thing the mysterious countess pacing the deck, the good-hearted Irishman who is gallantly lost, the black-and-white scramble for lifeboats, the money pouring in, audiences hardly realising that they have been disappointed, the instant oblivion to which the whole enterprise is then assigned. It should have been dynamic Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape who exclaimed, 'Clive James Marc Prince Charles' and so concocted this sure-fire wedding package of the hottest writer in town, the sharpest drawing pen and The Subject of the Year. Too big for a book, this brilliant concept is 'also available now as a specially priced double album' and it will soon be possible to see the author himself among others in a live stage performance. Doubtless a television deal is being forged, a Commonwealth tour planned. Clive James has already proved himself a star by producing memoirs that cling to the best-seller list as if he were an Edwardian lady and then lobbing his television criticism in as well.
But apparently it was not quite like that. Charlie Charming's Challenges, which the blurb says is 2001 lines and I did not think I need check, is the fourth satirical narrative poem that James has written and Marc illustrated. The others concerned London's Literary World, the Land of the Media, and the Wilderness of Westminster.
Heavily influenced by the subject matter, I am afraid I like them in descending order, this one the least. James may 'long have been impressed by Prince Charles as a potential epic hero' (blurb again) and must indeed have started long before The Announcement, but he has chosen a dull if box-office story about dull if famous people about whom he has no strong feeling or original insight. He seems rather to like them in a conventional way, Princess Anne and Princess Margaret less than the Queen and the Queen Mother, and you must remember Charles has a lot of hard work, which he does wonderfully well. Well I rather like them too and follow their exploits with more interest than Crossroads though less than Coronation Street. I accept the Monarch and Heir Apparent have to appear conventional to the point of nullity but peripheral royals should add to the gaiety of the nation with half-heard scandal and hushed-up adventures.
Private Eye's successful parody contains a hard kernel of dislike for Prince Charles who is portrayed as an arrogant, selfish womaniser. James allows only a little fantasy as he plods through the familiar plot of birth, Gordonstoun, Australia, Cambridge, Investiture, Girls and, (tacked on when it happened?) the merest mention of his choice of Lady Diana SeethroughSpiffing as a bride. Which is a pity as the relentless if smoothly handled rhyming couplets, ill-suited to a lightning analysis of the decline of the British empire, are much better at, for example, describing the transplant of a piece of Anne's nose, of which there is too much, to Charles's chin, of which there is too little:
'We're very pleased', Her Majesty declared, 'To see these irritating faults repaired.
A blemished Royal profile rather cramps The style of those chaps who design the stamps.'
'Now Charles,' barked Philip, when you get to school For Christ's sake please observe this golden rule, Or else you might be on a sticky wicket: By all means rub your new chin but don't pick it.
There is some fun when Charles uses his newly acquired grasp of royal etiquette in a performance of Macbeth and some excellent Welsh nonsense at the investiture. Cambridge allows the relief of portraits of various common dons. It is all managed efficiently and flows easily along but James has got the acutest ear around for the funny ways people talk and a gift for evoking sharp little moments that we have not seen since Tynan. We expect more. Luckily we get it. Marc's caricatures have all the bite the text lacks. He is particularly good at revealing ruthless determination, gleaming for instance in the triumphant eyes of Princess Margaret or in the set of David Owen's clamped lips. The Queen and Prince Philip are shown looking convincingly bad-tempered, Charles as ineffectual. James writes that he is relieved that royal power no longer extends to decapitating saucy critics. He need not be; it would not be his neck that was in danger.
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