‘The Coronation Concert’ Was A Sorry Sales Pitch for a Brand New King: TV Review
08.05.2023 - 00:35
/ variety.com
Mike McCahill Guest Contributor Ahead of the “Coronation Concert” – aired on the BBC on Sunday as the climax of the weekend’s royal celebrations – all the talk was of who wasn’t going to perform. Multiple A-listers (Adele, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles et al.) were reported to have declined official invitations, and their wariness around hitching their brands to what often feels like Britain’s longest-running soap opera, currently scattering followers after a succession of unsavory plotlines, now seems understandable. Tonight, as we were confronted with the concert’s arbitrarily assembled ensemble, it’s clear we were probably only a few refusals away from witnessing the Duke of York bashing a tray with a spoon.
Hopes that the evening would prove a London Olympics-style triumph-over-adversity rapidly dimmed. If these two hours recalled anything, it wasn’t Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, channelling Williams Blake, Morris and Shakespeare, but the justly forgotten closing ceremony, with its eggy whiff of Simons Cowell and Fuller. There was evident relief that Coronation Day’s downpours had relented, yet the clouds parted only to reveal a lot of money had been spent on very slim pickings indeed. “The excitement is definitely building here,” insisted backstage reporter Clara Amfo, striding past a terse police battalion on her way to interview Olly Murs.
Notionally, this was a major event. 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. Wells tripod. MC Hugh Bonneville, pausing between dad gags, reassured us that 100 countries were watching globally. Yet right through to Take That’s
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