A coronation is pure theatre. But how does one review it when there is so little to compare it with? I missed the 1953 coronation because my father, then an avowed republican, deliberately shunned it and took the family off to a rain-soaked county cricket match instead.
Coming fresh to the crowning of Charles III, I was struck by how immaculately rehearsed it was as a spectacle and how momentarily moving as a dramatic event.
There was indeed something Shakespearean about both the service in the abbey and the marches that surrounded it. By Shakespearean I mean there was a blend of pageantry, procession, music and mystery. That last quality was evident in the strange moment when Charles, shielded by embossed screens, was anointed by the archbishop of Canterbury with holy oil poured from an eagle-shaped ampulla to the sounds of Zadok the Priest.
“Not all the water in the rough, rude sea/Can wash the balm from an anointed king,” says Shakespeare’s Richard II. But even if we no longer believe in the divinity of kings, there was still something incalculable in that moment that I found immensely touching. Seeing Charles shedding his golden robes and preparing to kneel before the archbishop in a white tunic, I was also reminded of the public solitude that is a feature of every crowned head in Shakespeare.
Beneath all the ritual, however, there were many private moments to savour. The camera gave us glimpses of Charles early on nervously gnawing his nether lip, of Camilla anxiously adjusting her crown as if fearful it might slip off, of Prince Harry on his arrival sweeping past Justin Welby with barely a nod of acknowledgment.
The politicians also provided good sport. I was amused to see Tony Blair warmly embracing Sarah Brown while scarcely giving her husband the time of day. Funniest of all was the arrival of a group of Tory ex-prime ministers at the abbey, which turned out to be one of the longest processions of the day.
It was the music, however, that made the event. The highlight came when the solemn service was punctuated by an octet clad in pristine white gently swaying to gospel music. But there was a jaunty anthem by Andrew Lloyd Webber, new work from Debbie Wiseman and Sarah Class, a Te Deum by William Walton and Pomp and Circumstance by Edward Elgar.
Justin Welby said in an interview with Huw Edwards that “the biggest challenge was that the whole ceremony didn’t look like Gilbert and Sullivan”. It is fair to say that this coronation steered well clear of the campery of comic opera.
I doubt it will have changed many hearts and minds. Staunch republicans will most likely dismiss it as irrelevant flummery. Ardent royalists will have loved every second.
Speaking as someone who supports the Shavian argument that monarchy is a bulwark against dictatorship, I found it a dignified occasion and a reminder that, as a nation, we seem to be infinitely better at staging public spectacles than at governing the country.
