The Palace

Our version of the mighty The West Wing is set to arrive in the form of The Palace. And I am not convinced.

It is not just my natural antipathy to the Royals either. Part of the appeal of The West Wing was that Jed Bartlett was the most powerful man in the world. The decisions he made would impact on the world. He had to make choices about going to war, about the future of Cuba. He negotiated with China and tried to negotiate with North Korea. Sure, he always seemed able to make the right decisions and also often managed to do it in a way that allowed a obvious and patronising moral truth to be revealed, but his choices had a massive effect on the whole world in The West Wing.

And there in lies the problem – our Royal Family have no power. What is the series going to be about? The difficult choice of which charity gala to go to? The awfulness of life in the eyes of the paparazzi? The calamity of having to make a speech to the nation on Christmas day? To Play The King is an excellent fictional account of what would happen if the monarchy tried to get involved in politics in any other way other than being the ceremonial Head of State.

Somehow I can’t see The Palace having the same urgency as The West Wing.