Prince Edward and his wife Sophie were not a fan of Frank Skinner’s performance at the Royal Variety Show (Picture: Getty)
Frank Skinner and David Baddiel sang their football anthem Three Lions at the Royal Variety Performance last week, but Sophie, Countess of Wessex, wasn’t impressed – and told them so.
The comic duo have re-released their track with The Lightning Seeds again to coincide with the World Cup and subsequently belted out the banger to a crowd of royals and celebrities, hosted by Lee Mack at the Royal Albert Hall.
However, Sophie, the wife of Prince Edward, urged the pair: ‘Don’t give up your day job.’
During his Absolute Radio show over the weekend, Skinner told listeners he was feeling unwell on the night.
‘I thought “This is not how the royal walk thing works”. And we honestly said “Pardon”’ It’s supposed to be just banal compliments.
‘And I said “Erm, well, normally we’re like comics”. She said, “Yeah, but you’re on screen aren’t you, you’re not used to a live crowd.”
Here is the awkward exchange unfolding (Picture: David Parry – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
“I said, “Well we’ve done a bit of live stuff you know, stand-up and stuff.” But she’s sticking with it and she said “Yeah, but you haven’t done anywhere the size of this.”
I said “Look, I did the Palladium last Sunday.”
‘She looked at me like “you’re not supposed to be arguing, I don’t think you’re supposed to be arguing with me, you’re supposed to just nod”. It was like a really awkward thing.’
Skinner blamed the couple’s inexperience on the awkward exchange (Picture: Getty)
As if that wasn’t painful enough, Prince Edward then walked over and continued to butcher the boys.
Skinner admitted he couldn’t recall the exact words, but Prince Edward teased: ‘That’s a good review.’
The comic excused the couple for having little experience in speaking at the annual bash, kind of.
‘I think what’s happened is they don’t really do this stuff much, and they’ve (the royals) been reduced in numbers for various reasons, and so they’ve been pulled out to do this – and it’s a bit of a skill just talking to someone for 10 minutes and not upsetting them,’ he said.
He also claimed Prince Edward just couldn’t think of anything else to say to him and the conversation ‘just died’.
‘There was a moment where it was probably three seconds, but it felt like 10 minutes, he said “So, things are well?” And I thought “No. Come on”. And in the end I started to think I wanted to put my arm round him a bit. I think it’s tough.’
Hopefully the likes of George Ezra, Becky Hill and Ellie Goulding were more to the royals’ taste on the night.
You can see how well Baddiel and Skinner sang when The Royal Variety Performance airs on December 20 on ITV.
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‘I thought “This is not how the royal walk thing works”.
