Royal News Blog

Note: This article is from The Guardian.

This article titled “Charlie Gilmour appears in court accused of attacking royal convoy” was written by Alexandra Topping, for The Guardian on Friday 11th February 2011 18.25 UTC

Charlie Gilmour, son of the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, has appeared in court accused of attacking a convoy that included a car carrying the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

Gilmour, 21, is alleged to have been part of a breakaway group of protesters campaigning against the trebling of student tuition fees who attacked the cars as they travelled to the London Palladium for the Royal Variety performance on 9 December last year.

He is also accused of throwing a rubbish bin at a car containing the prince’s security officers and of sitting on the bonnet of the same vehicle.

Six other protesters also appeared before Westminster magistrates.

Simon Clements, prosecuting, told the court that between 7.15pm and 7.20pm a 100-strong group of protesters encircled three cars containing the prince, security guards and household staff – forcing them to stop in Regent Street in the West End of London.

He said missiles and paint had been thrown at the cars, smashing the back window of one.

Gilmour was then allegedly part of a group that attacked the Topshop flagship store in nearby Oxford Street. Security guards locked the doors and Gilmour is accused of breaking from the group and kicking one of the store’s windows.

He is charged with two counts of violent disorder, one in Regent Street and one in Oxford Street.

Gilmour, a history student at Cambridge University, appeared in the dock dressed smartly in a black overcoat and black scarf. He declined to indicate a plea.

The district judge, Daphne Wickham, renewed his conditional bail, which stipulates that he must not enter the City of Westminster without approval.

The case was adjourned to the same court until 25 March.

Gilmour was one of thousands of student protesters who took to the streets and protested against the introduction of tuition fees in Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square. He was charged with seven others by the Metropolitan police.

Gilmour, who has been on the books of modelling agency Select Model Management, is the son of writer and journalist Polly Samson. His biological father is the poet and playwright Heathcote Williams but he was adopted by the Pink Floyd guitarist when his mother remarried.

Six other protesters also appeared before Westminster magistrates on Thursday.

Justice Sey, 28, of East Finchley, north London, admitting writing on a bus stop and a government building and was fined for criminal damage and ordered to pay £375.

James Cross, 26, of Lewisham, south London, was given a community order after he admitted stealing police evidence bags.

Kevin Wilson-Webb, 50, of Kensington, west London, denied stealing a police helmet on 24 November and asked for trial by jury. He will next appear in court on 24 March.

James Jeffal, 19, from Cricklewood, north-west London, denied causing fear of unlawful violence at a protest on 30 November and is likely to face trial in June.

Two other students, arrested on the same day as Gilmour, were bailed until 24 March. Christopher Hilliard, 22, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, and a 17-year-old youth, also from Cheshire, were charged with committing violent disorder on 9 December.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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Note: This article is from The Guardian.

This article titled “Prince Charles’s visit to Brussels will come straight out of royal farce” was written by Leo Cendrowicz in Brussels, for The Guardian on Tuesday 8th February 2011 21.23 UTC

The Prince of Wales rarely visits Brussels, but at lunchtime on Wednesday he will be at the European parliament, urging EU officials to stay focused on climate change despite the economic downturn.

And later, Prince Charles will beonstage at the Belgian capital’s biggest theatre, singing to the plants in his greenhouse.

Closer reading of the bill reveals only one of the two is the authentic royal real deal. While the prince will address MEPs, an actor is to portray him at the theatre.

The royal box looks likely to be empty for the premiere of a comic play promising an incendiary take on the prince’s muddled private life, dramatising the love triangle between Charles, Camilla Parker Bowles and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Lady Camilla, or The Prince’s Choice depicts royal chaos, with a fraught Queen struggling helplessly to contain the mess unleashed by Charles’s disintegrating marriage. By an extraordinary coincidence, the opening night of the cheeky play has fallen on a day Charles was in town.

Yet as Prince William and Kate Middleton count down to their wedding, it provides an unwelcome reminder of how a previous fairytale royal marriage slipped into charade and tragedy.

Weaving real life with invented scenes, the play features five characters: Charles, Diana, Camilla, the Queen and James, a fictional butler to the prince.

Beginning three decades ago, when Charles first met Camilla, it is part love story, part bedroom farce, part sociological study of the British aristocracy.

Director Fabrice Gardin believes the mix of genres reflects the modern day mythology of the royal family. “It’s a fascinating world of secrets, things unsaid and taboos,” he said.

“It is also a critique of the way high society conducts human relations, considering itself above the law.”

The play suggests Diana was selected on Charles’s behalf for her suitability to ensure dynastic continuity: as a fresh-skinned, blue-blooded young bride, her virginity certified by doctors, she was merely expected to fulfil a royal contract and produce two heirs.

As a loveless match, the marriage had the shakiest of foundations, with Charles and Camilla even spending the night together on the eve of the 1981 royal wedding.

The play shows Diana becoming more assertive, developing a Hollywood media image while battling her private neuroses.

Charles, by contrast, is shown as a solitary man, his character scarred by his strict upbringing. Camilla, while tender towards Charles, is portrayed as a manipulative powerbroker.

Despite the play’s melodramatics, it has been written by one of Brussels’ most celebrated intellectuals: Pascal Vrebos, a cultural commentator, semiotics lecturer and author of books about Mikhail Gorbachev and Henry Miller.

His interest was piqued when he discovered that Camilla had recommended that Charles marry Diana.

“This is an eminently theatrical situation,” Vrebos said, comparing the vacillating Charles to Hamlet, scheming Camilla to Lady Macbeth and Diana to Othello’s doomed wife Desdemona.

“Camilla wants to be a royal mistress, Diana is in love with the idea of royalty and Charles doesn’t want to marry. It’s a comedy of masks, of power and money, of intrigues, of secret services and sex.”

The play is being staged at the Théâtre Royal des Galeries, an 850-seat auditorium decorated by surrealist painter René Magritte.

The production is likely to gather far larger crowds than Charles will at the European parliament. It is scheduled to run for a month, until 6 March, but there are no plans to tour in the UK.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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