Prince Edward Comes With Crown & Country

The gold signer on the little finger is the only giveaway. It weren't for the `R' and the royal emblem on the ring, you could easily have mistaken the ordinary looking man, dressed casually in amustard shirt and beige trousers, as just any other foreign businessman. Certainly, the youngest son of the Queen of England requests that uour call him just Edward and not by his given title, HRH Edward of Wessex or even Prince Edward.

He is after all, as he respeatedly reminds you, on a personal visit to Mumbai as director of his television company. Ardent Productions. Star Worrld, which yesterday announced the launch of Crown & Country, a docu-drama series on the histroy of the English monarchy that has been wirtten, presented and produced by the Prince, Star World is also airing Windsor Restored, another documentary made by him on the fire that destoryed a fifth of Windsor Palace in 1992 and the five-year-long restoration efforts. Crown & Country, a travelogue-cum-historical series developed five years ago, takes viewers to different places in UK, telling their stories but around the central theme of the releationship between the crown the each place. While Prince Edward was initially reluctant to make it, he reveals that he had a great deal of fun doing it.

 

"It gave me an opportunity to visit places that I had never been to before,' he recounts. Such as Canterbury. Or in London, there were plces like Estminister Abbey that he's only visited for an event or service. "I'd never had the chance to explore the abbey or all the buildings surrounding it. Or there was the government building today. It was the largest palce in Europe till a fire destroyed it in 1699 but some of the old bits of the Tudor palace, like the old wine cellar below the ministry of defence, are still there," he recounts.

Certainly, histroy is a subject close to the Prince's hear. It' also been the them of his career as a television producer. "Television is a storytelling medium and a wonderful way to tell history," he says.

Price Edward's won history as a television produce began in 1993, when he launche Ardent. The compnay is still to break even though and reportediy has an accumulated debt of pound 1.7 million. Says Prince Edward, "IT has taken us a long time to develop the company. That's because this is a relationship business. It'a all about building relationships and turst. But now, oits beginning to pay off."

Aredent, which has produced 50 hours of programming, is focused on the international market. Some 75 per cent of its programmes are made for this market, 50 per cent being for US. Edward, in fact, has been accused of using his royal connections to open doors especially in Hollywood through he shrugs this off.

So is he the most creative of the royals? "I doubt, it There are lot of people in my family who do a lot of things; I've very lucky to come from a very creative family".

But does he get work for who he is or does he have to work doubly hard to prove himself? His answer? "On the whole, people expect much, much more of you."