Interviews with the stars of the Windsors Royal Wedding Special

As Channel 4 comedy The Windsors prepares its version of the Royal Wedding, we publish the first pictures from the upcoming special, while its stars talk about what it entails.

Richard Goulding who plays Harry

What can you reveal about the Royal Wedding special?

It starts with the proposal, and I think it runs up until the big day, and ends in the moments after the wedding. So it covers a number of months.

There's a bit where Charles and Harry go and meet Meghan's mum, Doria, when Charles is on the charm offensive. And then it jumps to the wedding. But it's mainly concentrated in the run up to the wedding. And there's the stag do in there as well, of course.

Did you do any special research?

To be honest, the scripts are so strong and unique that in some ways all I have to do is turn up and deliver the punchlines. But I did do some research, actually. There's a scene in it of a sort of mock up photo shoot of the one Meghan and Harry did in Kensington Palace, so I looked at that a bit. And I read up a little bit about their relationship, just so I was in the know a bit. But I didn't do any really deep research, I must admit.

Had the writers been frantically waiting for details about the wedding to leak out, or did they just come up with a complete work of fiction?

Well, some of the details are factual. We didn't film it at St George's Chapel in Windsor, but it does take place there in the story. I don't know if there is much more that's accurate in there!

I know they pitched the idea of doing a wedding special and Channel 4 loved it, and they just went from there. I guess they must have waited for details like the date of the wedding, and the venue things like that. But I think most of it is a complete work of fiction.

Is it fun, getting togged up in the dress uniform for the wedding?

Yeah, but I've got to say those uniforms are so uncomfortable. It is fun for about a minute, and then it's horrendous. The only time it's good is when it's cold, and we were filming on one of the coldest days ever in England. It was something like -6°C in St Albans, and I was quite grateful to have a big, thick woolly uniform on.

Other than that it's a totally horrendous experience wearing that uniform, it's so uncomfortable. And it makes you stand up so straight, and in our modern world we're just not used to standing up as straight as we should, I don't think.

And you get a bit of attention from passers-by in the street.

Will you watch the TV news coverage of the Royal Wedding?

Yeah, I'll keep an eye on it… to see if he's as funny as me.

Where would you put yourself on a scale from royalist to republican?

I don't think I'm ever a staunch royalist, but I'm sometimes quite a staunch republican. I'm not really either, I'm a bit pathetic. I sit on the fence a bit.

Do you find yourself rooting for Harry in a way you didn't before you started playing him?

I guess so. Obviously I've been thinking about him professionally now for four or five years. I am aware of him much more than I was, but it happened quite gradually. But I do notice pictures of him or articles about him more than I used to.

What do you think of Harry? His popular image seems to have changed somewhat…

Yeah. I think he's been amazing, actually. I really admire him. Going way back, he had to deal with his mum's death, and it's not easy, to put it mildly, growing up in the public eye like that.

He's had his brushes with scandal and controversy, but I think he and Wills and Kate, and now Meghan, do an amazing job of making the royal family relevant and important, and doing what they can to promote very good and worthy causes.

He seems to have really found his feet, and I think he's brilliant. And he does it all with a sense of humour and a grace, which I think is really commendable.

Kathryn Drysdale who plays Meghan Markle

Did you do any special research for this royal wedding special?

I did. I watched the interview with Meghan and Harry, the broadcast engagement interview. And I also watched a couple of YouTube clips of Meghan Markle at some of the events that she attended.

What can you tell us about the special?

It's a lot of fun! I think it's probably the funniest Windsors episode to date. The writing is just… it's literally belly laughs watching it. Certainly for me watching the scenes that I'm not in, I was belly laughing. There's a lot of fun to be had and the writers have really gone to town on it.

Can you tell us a bit about what happens to Meghan in the special?

For Meghan, quite a lot happens. We go from the actual proposal and all the preparations in terms of the engagement. We see the stag do, which she sort of ends up organising which is funny because we have the stag in LA. Then we see her coming back for the wedding preparations in Windsor Castle. There's a lot of surprises and twists and turns in the interim. And there's a kind of 'will-they-or-won't-they' element at one point.

Was it fun putting on the wedding dress and the tiara?

Yes, apart from the fact that when we were shooting the exterior of me arriving at the castle there were particularly strong winds – some of the strongest winds we'd had for years in England, I think – and my tiara fell off, the wonderful hairdo the hair and makeup team had spent hours doing all kind of collapsed! So we had to rush inside the set and redo everything.

And the crown was quite heavy, actually. But yeah, it was fun. You forget what it's like for people who get married – they have to stay in their dresses for a long period of time and it's quite heavy. I enjoyed getting out of the car, greeting the British public in my dress, it was a lot of fun!

Will you be watching the Royal Wedding?

Most definitely. Probably with my boyfriend and I don't know where yet but we will definitely be watching.

What do you think about Meghan Markle?

I love Meghan Markle. For me I can relate to her in that we're both mixed race and we've both been actresses in a label-driven industry. I like the fact she hasn't defined herself by her relationship She's still doing her own thing, her own work. She's a fantastic activist as well. She's intelligent, she's beautiful. So yeah, I think it's great we're going to have a mixed race princess in the royal family.

Have you watched Suits, and if so what did you think?

I haven't really watched Suits. My parents are big Suits fans and they've probably not missed an episode but for me… we do do a scene from Suits. It is The Windsors version of it so I didn't need to do too much method acting with that.

The cliché is that all girls would love to marry a prince. Would you want to swap places with Meghan Markle?

No, I wouldn't want to swap places with Meghan Markle and marry a prince. I got my own version of a prince so I'm very happy.

The Windsors Royal Wedding Special airs May 17 at 9pm on Channel 4, two days before the real Royal Wedding. The cast also includes Suzette Llewellyn as Meghan's down-to-earth mum. Doria, Harry Enfield as Charles, Hugh Skinner as WIlls, Louise Ford as Kate, Paul Kaye as Windsor's evil Trampcatcher, Celeste Dring as Eugenie, Ellie White as Beatrice, Vicki Pepperdine as Anne, Katy Wie as Fergie; Haydn Gwynne as Camilla and Morgana Robinson as Pippa.

Published: 1 May 2018