@BasiliskStare The Julie Burchill column isn’t behind the paywall. Here it is though. Savage and sharp (and very long!)
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My experience of Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex and Muchness of Montecito, has I imagine been quite a common one. I started out full of enthusiasm that this apparently self-made counter-jumper (actually expensively educated by her poor doofus of a dad) was bringing a soupçon of style to the old Windsors. When it transpired that she was a liar (that ‘secret’ wedding before the public one) and a hypocrite (taking private jets like others take taxis while preachingabout climate change) I naturally changed my opinion of her, as I’m not a dolt. I’ve loathed the lying, hypocritical bore ever since, and noted with pleasure the repeated failure that her ‘projects’ run into.
With Love, Meghan launches on Netflix today, and is very much thought to be her last chance to make good. As the Daily Mail had it: ‘Sources have said the Sussexes’ relationship with Netflix is on borrowed time, amid claims they have proven hard to work with. “The word bandied around internally is ‘nightmare’”, one insider told the Sunday Times, with others claiming the chances of a deal being renewed would rest squarely on whether or not With Love, Meghan proved a hit.’
I was all caffeine’d up and ready to roll at 8 a.m. British time, having been driven to a feverish state of excitement by a rare Instagram pic of the couple’s daughter Lilibet Limited used as a ‘teaser’ for the show, with the words ‘three days till the party begins…’ Over here in Blighty we might find this use of a small child in the pursuit of the almighty dollar somewhat distasteful, but though Meghan and Harry have long railed impotently against President Trump, I think it’s fair to say that they are every bit as interested in ‘the Benjamins’ as he is.
This is very much Meghan’s show, with Harry making a few background appearances; Fanny and Johnnie finding their place in the natural order of things. It’s like that notorious Time cover where he stood behind her looking like a hairdresser assuring her the highlights took a good five years off her – ‘Not that you need it, darling, you and Lilibet Limited could be sisters!’
The first shot of the first episode features a bee feasting on a flower, which is an unfortunate image considering how the Hollywood man-hopper helped herself to the sticky wealth of the Spare. We’re then treated to Meghan trussed up in a bee-keeper’s outfit talking about making her own honey. One sensed that this would be a pattern; the ex-actress who had walked away dismayed from so many auditions, overlooked for someone younger/prettier/more talented now getting to have all her starring roles at once, not quite realising that she is doing it in front of a world ready to judge her very harshly indeed for upsetting the Queen. You could almost feel sorry for her – almost, if she wasn’t such a thick-skinned, attention-seeking no-mark.
Then we’re in a boring kitchen – so beige it makes background music sound like Shirley Bassey – which she admits isn’t even her own, of all the phoney starts, and she’s talking about the first guest she’s going to have over, someone called ‘Daniel Martin’. It’s unfortunate that this is the name of an eponymous John Fowles hero, as it adds to the feeling that Meghan is in the habit of having ‘imaginary friends’, the real power-players of showbiz having turned against her some time ago.
Next she’s playing at being an apothecary, concocting some dreary looking bath-salts (buy proper shop ones, you stingy rotter – you’ve got 16 toilets!) for Mr Martin, and again you get the feeling of a lost soul with no real, fixed centre trying on looks.
Like a lot of women who were attractive when young, she says things that are dull as if they’re amusing, having gotten into the habit of thinking herself a wit by men who wanted to get into her knickers. But not even the cameramen can raise a titter. We see her try all her ‘looks’ on: caring, convivial and especially sincere. They say that once you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything; Meghan can’t even fake sincerity well.
She does look bored a lot of the time. ‘Jeez, he told me I’d be Empress of India and I’m prepping popcorn!’ It’s very, very dull – almost surreally so; quite a few shots are literally of water coming to the boil. Every other word she speaks is ‘So cool!’ and ‘Amazing!’ – but it’s really not. The only fun I could find in it was shrieking with predictable mock-horror at the way Americans pronounce ‘pasta’ and ‘basil’ – that’s how bored I was.
Then they make candles out of the left-over wax; ‘I’ve never touched bees-wax before,’ shudders Mr Martin, and you could swear he’s going to say ‘a vagina.’ When they’re adding the essential oils, music starts playing which sounds like that sublimely comic refrain which heralded The Benny Hill Show, and I couldn’t help wondering if Meghan had been rude to the series musical director.
Mr Martin turns out to be Meghan’s long-time make-up artist, and at the risk of being bitchy, this could be useful. She’s not looking so great, and that’s worth mentioning because her looks – her ‘heart-attack beauty’ according to her loving ginger princeling – were always her major currency. As one who’s been there myself, I’d bet she’s been hitting the ‘Zempy; her bosom has all but disappeared, and was her nose always that big? I can’t talk, resembling as I do Concorde in profile, but it’s like she’s getting more aquiline by the year.
Mindy Kaling, the alleged droll, turns up in Part Two for an alleged ‘kids party prep’ and gets a frittata for her troubles; I’d want more than that to listen to Meghan’s prattle about her preserves. Poor Kaling actually expresses the view that getting sent a jar of her friend’s jam was ‘one of the most glamorous moments of my life’; not gonna lie, my life’s more glamorous than that, and I spend most of my time wearing a nappy and lying in a hospital bed.
By the way, it’s a shame that this Indian-heritage performer, once so attractive, has had so many tweaks that she now looks like Khloe Kardashian had a baby with that cross-dresser who disgraced themselves during the ‘Emilia Perez’ brouhaha. There’s a creepy bit of MM marking her territory so strongly that you can practically smell the foxy urine when Kaling uses the name ‘Meghan Markle’ only to be emphatically if chummily corrected ‘I’m Sussex now!’ and an unintentionally humorous bit where Meghan crowns herself with a tiara of daises. Make the best of it, Megsie – you won’t be getting your pick of the State jewels anymore!
Apparently Meghan will be joined in future by such showbiz luminary pals as ‘Abigail Spencer’ – I’d love to see the list of guests who turned her down – during this eight-parter, which the Duchess apparently hopes may serve as a platform for her newly-named dry-goods range in the imminent mall stores Netflix is about to open. Regrettably, the new brand name ‘As Ever’ sounds like a funeral parlour whereas the previous one ‘American Riviera Orchard’ sounded like a retirement home.
I have to say that Meghan’s career trajectory reminds me more and more of that of the late Paula Yates, who also started off as the companion of various famous men and then ‘bagged’ a B-list big-shot, both of them going on to procreate and attempt to recreate themselves as domestic goddesses. But the Domestic Goddess shtick is tired and draggy even when Nigella does it now. Worse, it looks like a real moral pratfall, considering the perilous times we find ourselves in, with the combination of the rising cost of living combined with a Europe nearer to war than in any time since the last world conflagration combining to make pratting abut with pricey crudities seem in very bad taste.
Though Meghan may carry on promising Netflix jam tomorrow, I have a feeling that this absolute screaming stinker of a show – a show so dull it makes watching paint dry seem like Saturday night at a supermodel lesbian chem-sex orgy – won’t be delivering any time soon.