Six burning questions about Harry and Meghan's new podcast

Fancy injecting some blue blood into your ears? Well, you’re in luck because the first episode of the Sussexes’ heavily hyped podcast has landed on Spotify.

The music streaming site reportedly paid tens of millions of pounds for the runaway royal duo’s podcast series. The opening instalment is a star-studded, platitude-stuffed “Holiday Special”. But we have questions. Six of them, to be precise…

1. How do you pronounce Archewell?

Is it “Arch-well”? “Archer-well”? “Arsh-well”? In the podcast trailer, released earlier this month, even Harry seemed to stumble over the correct way to pronounce the name of his production company, Archewell Audio. During the first episode, he lands on Arch-well (that's ch as in church, not parachute) – but will that deviate in future podcasts? Stay tuned to find out. If you can bear it.

2. Isn’t it all a bit hypocritical?

We’re afraid so, yes. The pair spend a lot of time wanging on earnestly about “building community”, “the power of connection” and “our passion for meeting people”. Which is all very nice, except they don't actually talk to anyone in the podcast.

“Ginge and Cringe”, as they’ve been dubbed on Twitter, didn’t interview their guests. Instead they asked them to record their own audio diaries to avoid what Harry describes as "the awkward dance of video chat”. OK, face-to-face meetings might have been impossible in lockdown, but it seems a bit rich to blah on about “how interconnected we all are” when there's no actual interaction in evidence.

Of course, there’s also the matter of them being varying degrees of removed from their own families. Are they practising what they preach? No wonder Piers Morgan has already mimed vomiting into a bin at the sound of it.

3. What’s with the random bag of celebrities?

Again, possibly hypocritical. Harry and Meghan announced that they wanted their podcast to showcase “voices we haven’t heard before”. Instead they’ve opened with a rollcall of well-known names – some of whom (*cough* Elton John, *splutter* James Corden), we’ve already heard quite enough from, thanks very much. Civilian tolerance for rich, famous celebs “reflecting on what they’ve learned in 2020” is surely stretched to its limit.

Alongside Reg Dwight and Smithy from Gavin & Stacey, there’s spoken word artist George The Poet, bestselling author Matt Haig, actor Tyler Perry, alternative health guru Deepak Chopra, tennis player Naomi Osaka, Michelin-starred chef José Andrés, teen activist Christina Adane and US politician Stacey Abrams. Some of these guests are poignant and thought-provoking, but are they the “people from all walks of life” that Meghan promises at the start of the show?

4. Does Prince Archie have an American accent?

Little Archie steals the show by speaking publicly for the first time, ending the 33-minute episode by wishing listeners a "Happy... New... Year” in endearingly giggly fashion. It’s an aww-inducing (if arguably self-indulgent) moment and the one-year-old already displays a hint of a US accent.

Judging by his father Harry’s own increasingly mid-Atlantic tones – pronouncing 2020 as “Twenny Twenny”, need-to-do as “needadoo”, liberally using the words “buddy”, “guys” and “folks”, and wishing us “Happy Holidays” rather than Merry Christmas – his son’s accent is likely to drift even further westward and end up somewhere in California. Yo mom, can I get granola and grits for brunch?

We dread to think how the poor lad will pronounce “oregano” and “aluminium”.

5. How do they follow this up?

Judging by this opening episode, two potential future career moves hove into view. The first is daytime TV. From their matey introductions (“Hi guys, I’m Harry” “And I’m Meghan”) onwards, there’s a distinct whiff of This Morning, The One Show or even a cable shopping channel about the pair’s presentational style. You half expect them to link to a featurette about plus-size fashion, puppy-training or handy household hints involving vinegar.

They titter at each other’s not-quite-jokes and finish each other’s sentences. They have the studied faux-spontaneity and breezy banter of lifestyle show hosts. They’re slick (especially Meghan’s purposeful radio voice) but also relatably amateurish (especially Harry’s Hugh Grant-esque bumbling). A squishy couch and branded coffee mugs on a commercial channel could await.

The second potential revenue stream is inspirational “merch”. Like Gwyneth Paltrow or a self-help “influencer”, they have the knack of spouting platitudes with such doe-eyed sincerity that they sound deep and meaningful. Their cookie-cutter clichés about “compassion and kindness” could appear over a sunset background on Facebook, while ”Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that” belongs on an Etsy mug.

Meghan’s sign-off is: “No matter what life throws at you, love always wins.” Which is crying out to be written in a twee typeface, framed and stuck on an annoying person’s kitchen wall.

6. Will this podcast feature in a forthcoming episode of The Crown?

Let’s hope so. There could be a scene where the cringe-inducing couple wear headphones, sip wellness-promoting chai lattés and canoodle in a cosy sound booth.

They’ll pointedly ignore texts from back home in Blighty with a roll of the eyes, before their son toddles in wearing a backwards baseball cap and high-fiving everyone.

And then The Queen wakes up and it was all a bad dream. Phew.