A right royal stumble for the BBC’s ‘King Charles III’

Set in an alternate/not too distant future (which many thought had become a reality before Prince Philip announced his retirement last week), King Charles III – a one-off adaptation of Mike Bartlett's play – sees Charles ascend to the throne after the Queen's death and become entangled in issues with the freedom of the press.

Bartlett’s drama may have felt weighty and wry on stage, but on screen the Shakespearean-esque satire feels like being hit over the head repeatedly with an industrial-sized sledgehammer.

There are clunky scenes where Harry's civilian girlfriend Jess (Tamara Lawrance) painstakingly explains taxation to Richard Goulding's prince, as though this was an entirely new concept for the prince. When he's not sitting in chippers living out a gender reversal of Common People, Harry's wearing hoodies and dreaming of escaping the clutches of The Firm.

There are monologues and winky House of Cards nods to the camera, there is a soundtrack that's a Poundland version of Mica Levi's score from the film Jackie. Charlotte Riley as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is Lady Macbeth with a 12-week blow dry, more like a marble-mouthed wag than a serious threat.

Then there is the scandal of Princess Diana’s ghost (played by Katie Brayben), who pops in to offer counsel to Charles and William (Oliver Chris) in her Martin Bashir interview voice.

Instead of being shocked by her presence, audiences may be more alarmed by the fact that she looks uncannily like Anthea Turner in a Wallis shift dress who wandered on to the set by accident.

The tone is too worthy and smug to be truly poignant or provocative, with only the late Tim Pigott-Smith’s (the veteran actor died suddenly in April) performance as the troubled king elevating it above a selection of glib caricatures.

The queen may not be dead, but it’s time for this troublesome parody to shuffle off this mortal coil.