Crowds will line the streets to take part in the coronation. But many present will later struggle to explain exactly why they were there. Witnessing a historic event might be the best answer. Though the spectacle may appeal to viewers, it is the monarchy that depends on it. It is not the people who need the king, but the king who needs the people: the power of performance lies in the response of the audience. The coronation of Charles III is theatre held to convey divine approval to the person of the monarch. It is a cruel irony that while the public are told to get used to being poorer, they are also the crucial props to the lavish excesses of royal pomp and circumstance.
Charles is a very different character from his mother. But the image projected of the monarch owes more to show and glamour than individual nature. That is why the paying public is expected to offer adulation, lest we disrupt the display with disturbing questions about the monarchy’s value and relevance. Such a thought ought to offend any modern sense Britain has of itself. The scandals of recent years have revealed the Windsors to be rather more dysfunctional than the average British household.
