The courtship of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is like an escapist Richard Curtis movie, without us actually having to watch Love Actually on Boxing Day. The royal family have looked deep in their hearts and wondered what they could give a nation that already has so much. Not money for the NHS or housing for the poor — we have more than enough, thank you! No, they have given us a new Prince Harry romance to push the depressing news off the front page. And so far, it is scripted to perfection as if by Curtis himself.
The latest scene? This week Harry and his adorable girlfriend buy a Christmas tree together in Battersea Park, which forms the plot backbone of the genre. Traditionally this is shown in a montage, with Meghan starting an impromptu snowball fight to the backing track of I’ll Be Home for Christmas set against picturesque central London locations. Markle is an American — Curtis would insist on this since it plays well on both sides of the Atlantic — and confesses to the tree-seller how she misses her home country. Oh royal family, you are treating us.
Except, let’s pause this scene a little. We never actually get to see Harry and Meghan together. In fact, we never have. We hear the details afterwards, from the woman at the Pines and Needles kiosk who hilariously did not recognise them until too late, how Harry thought the mistletoe was “weird” but how Meghan — this will form the next plotline — determinedly grabbed a bunch to take home to his Kensington Palace cottage.
And yet, in this age in which a mobile phone makes everyone a paparazzo, there is no footage. None. This is because the royal family know us too well. The relentless pursuit of Harry and his girlfriends ruins what we love too much. The next scenes to play — almost certainly Harry teaching Meghan to ice skate, followed by adorably wiping the hot-chocolate cream off her nose; or, for some Curtis comedy, introducing the slick American woman to the eccentric extended family who wear Rudolph jumpers and shout obscenities at the Queen’s Christmas message — will be played off camera. Almost as if this whole thing were not a piece of fiction for our entertainment.