Tcrh Queen Camilla

What's Your Point Ma'am?

Review

"The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance."

So says confirmed Republican Sue Townsend. I can't argue with her. Sadly this book, apparently intended as a biting satire, fails to hit its targets.

It is reasonably entertaining and rolls along quite merrily. The Royal Family, having being forced out of the palaces, are living in a ghetto with the morbidly obese, single mums, the uneducated and disgraced professionals.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister is suffering a crisis of confidence and the Conservatives (New Cons) are making restoring the monarchy a central plank of their election campaign.

All this is threatened by the appearance of Charles and Camilla's long forgotten son, Graham, a health and safety officer from Ruislip.

Into this plot Townsend weaves a nonsensical tale about the royal dogs. But really it is the jokes that let her down. The Tory leader, Boy English, is the least inspired caricature of "Call me Dave" Cameron that you are likely to find. The resolution of the Graham storyline uses, as a plot device, a joke that is as old as the monarchy itself.

Townsend's biggest failure, however, is to create a set of characters that defeat her own argument. The Queen appears a decent old biddy, Charles, blundering and dithering though he might be, also has an essential, admirable decency at heart.

On the other hand the politicians are, in turn, odious, ridiculous, pitiful and untrustworthy. It is not a strong advert for republicanism.

It is doubtful if Townsend played as many bum notes as she does here. This failure renders an enjoyable book almost completely pointless.

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