Light-hearted laughs all round in A Royal Night Out [Review]
Imagine if your parents refused to let you go to a cool party. But imagine if the biggest party in, ooh, a decade was happening, right outside your front door, and Mum and Dad still wouldn’t let you go? That’s what happens to Lilibet and Margaret in A Royal Night Out.
It’s probably worth mentioning that the party is VE Day, and the girls are Princess Elizabeth – soon to be Queen Elizabeth II – and her younger sister. This is a fun account of what could have happened if the rumour is true that the girls did head out to celebrate victory being declared over Europe at the end of the second world war.
The King and Queen finally relent, and agree to let the princesses out of the palace – to attend a dull evening with dull people, while a couple of military types babysit them. But when the army chaps get distracted, the girls manage to escape, and set off on an adventure more along the lines of what they’d first had in mind.
The pair gets separated, and while fun-loving Margaret is focused only on having a good time, Elizabeth recruits an airman to help her find her sister, and get home by curfew.
Yes, the whole thing is silly and frothy and largely improbable, and yes, there’s a lot in it that probably is of no interest or importance if you haven’t spent time in Britain. But behind the fluff is an important reminder of what people went through during the war, and of the importance of filling your life with trustworthy, kind-hearted friends, however different from you they may be.
There are some laugh-out-loud moments – Margaret, or “P2” as she’s called, can be relied on to make waves wherever she goes – and some really beautiful shots of London. It’s also a reminder that some entertainment is just that – it doesn’t need to make us think, or question our existence, it is there to make us have as good a time as a royal getting pushed around London in a wheelbarrow.