Prince Charles and, er, Camelot

Prince Charles faced questions from a junior staffer about whether there were opportunities for promotion within "the organization." Apparently she wasn't even asking on her own behalf. Charles wrote to someone he trusted:

In the memo, the prince wrote: "What is wrong with everyone nowadays? "Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities? "This is to do with the learning culture in schools as a consequence of a child-centred system which admits no failure. "People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability. "This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history."

The Globe and Mail (probably behind a registration wall by now) added the delicious detail that Charles is himself "genetically engineered"--and, er, not a brilliant success.

I was reminded of a song from Camelot. This is not a great musical. Lerner and Loewe had done very well, after years of work, with My Fair Lady, and my sense is that they were pressed to come up with another show, quick, to strike while the iron was hot. There are several strong tunes in My Fair Lady: "Take Me to the Church" got a nice rendition from Sinatra, "I Could have Danced All Night" is kind of standard (not a favourite of mine), and Dean Martin did a really lovely job of "I've Grown Accustomed to her Face."

By comparison, it's hard to think of a really strong song in Camelot, and all too easy to think of poor Bob Goulet singing "C'est Moi, C'est Moi." No, it ain't Bob, and it never was. It all tends toward the ... silly. The association with JFK came because he honestly couldn't think of any aspect of culture, popular or not, that he liked or had any real interest in; in desperation, to answer a question from a reporter, he said something about Camelot--at the time, probably the biggest hit on Broadway. Oh, they might have said, you mean adultery and all that.... No, forget it.

UPDATE: I have the sequence slightly wrong here. L and L collaborated on Brigadoon (1947), which yielded "Almost Like Being in Love" (I remember Sean Connery singing this to Dustin Hoffman in a movie about a family of thieves--hilarious). Then came Paint Your Wagon (1951)--I would say fairly weak music. Then MFL (1956), then Camelot (1960). Somewhere in there was the movie of Gigi, with "Thank Heaven for Little Girls"--Maurice Chevalier, of course, and again hilarious.

The song is "What Do the Simple Folk Do?"

When they/'re beset and besieged
The folk not noblessly obliged
However do they manage to shed their weary lot?
Oh, what do simple folk do we do not?

Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:45 pm MST by robertll | Email Article |

Prince Charles and, er, Camelot