Monarchy (C4); Jennie Bond's Royals (five): HISTORY comes in many shapes and sizes. David Starkey, whose Monarchy series began earlier this week, favours a sober approach.

Mind you, taking royalty seriously becomes less possible with each fresh revelation about their private lives, but Starkey does his best.

He has the advantage, at the moment, of dealing with the early days of the monarchy over 1,500 years ago in the "chaos and violence of the dark ages," when the tabloid press weren't around.

Compared to his previous efforts, this was a bit dull, despite Starkey materialising mysteriously from the steam of Roman baths and in the middle of fields where battles were fought. Perhaps things will perk up once he gets on more familiar territory.

Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond was much more fun as her series considered The War Of The Wales as Charles and Diane played out their marriage and its break-up in the full glare of the press and public.

The James Bond-style credits indicated that hers would be a more popular, almost tabloid approach to the subject. She'd assembled a table-full of royal reporters and photographers to mull over their exclusives and recent developments in the soap opera known as the House of Windsor.

There were also comments from former employees of the royal household - Diana's private secretary and media advisor - to lend an air of authenticity to the proceedings.

Bond didn't have anything particularly fresh to offer. We'd already heard about the Princess' gift of stockings that Bond had admired but this "Diana invited me round to see her at Kensington Palace" style of reporting made it easier to connect with the story than Starkey's historical fact sheet.

Bond's conclusion was that Charles and Diana manipulated the media quite unashamedly to their own ends. Both gave TV interviews when their marriage was in trouble that were perhaps ill-advised, with both the heir to the throne and his wife admitting publicly to affairs.

Things didn't always go according to plan, like the time Diana's clandestine meeting with a Daily Mail reporter was captured on camera by rival The Sun. And was Charles well-advised to complain about the media at the same time he'd invited a documentary film crew to follow him around for a year?.

You have to admit they were very good at the way they used the press. On the day that Charles confessed to an affair on TV, Diana upstaged him and made the front pages by turning up at a public event in the most glamorous, off-the-shoulder dress imaginable. This ensured the press got the photographs they needed to go with accounts of Charles' confession the next morning.

Bond mulled over with former ITN royal reporter Nicholas Owen the time someone fired a starting pistol and leapt on stage during Charles' tour of Australian, in 1994. Bond was more concerned about her appearance on the tape than the potential danger to the prince. "I look a wreck," she exclaimed on viewing the footage.

Published: 21/10/2004