The “excruciating” public blunder that haunted the royal family for years
You can’t imagine anything like this happening today – four prominent members of the royal family tacking part in a cringeworthy gameshow televised across the United Kingdom.
But in 1987, one senior royal dreamt up the idea in a misguided attempt at good PR.
Prince Edward had thought it a good move for himself, Sarah Ferguson (then the Duchess of York) her then husband Prince Andrew, as well as Princess Anne to take part in a farcical, obstacle-based gameshow, The Grand Knockout Tournament, a spinoff of It’s A Knockout, reports news.com.au.
It was coined thereafter A Royal Knockout and chronicled as part of a Four Corners special on the history of the royal family’s public relations efforts. The royal quartet were dressed in medieval garb, in the charity special judged by Blackadder himself Rowan Atkinson, where “players dress up as giant vegetables and throw fake hams at each other”.
"The royals went off in several really questionable directions, the first of which, the nadir, was It’s A Royal Knockout,” royal biographer Stephen Bates recalled during the Four Corners special.
Bates’ said that although It’s A Knockout in his opinion was a “really, really naff program” it was “terribly popular and the royals, or at least Prince Edward, thought the royals could cash in on this. It’s A Royal Knockout was completely the wrong sort of message to give.”
In Ben Pimlott’s biography The Queen a royal insider explained that Queen Elizabeth didn’t want the young Royals to take part, as reported by news.com.au.
“It was a terrible mistake. (The Queen) was against it. But one of her faults is that she can’t say no,” they said.
“There was not a single courtier who did not think it was a mistake,” said another insider.
Pimlott called the appearance on the game show “excruciating”, making the British public “stunningly aware that a sense of decorum was not an automatic quality in the royal family”.
The 80-minute charity game show also featured a bevy of big stars including John Travolta, Cliff Richard and John Cleese.