King Charles can put on a show-stopping turn as characters from Harry Potter when performing for his grandchildren, Queen Camilla has revealed.
The monarch, who shared the 50p coin with wizard Albus Dumbledore last year, can do a ‘brilliant’ impersonation of the characters from the beloved children’s series his wife has said.
The Queen revealed her husband’s talent for mimicry on her new podcast, The Queen’s Reading Room, last week, making her the second royal to move into online programming after Meghan Markle’s now-cancelled Archetypes show.
On the opening episode of the new podcast, in which she largely played second fiddle to crime writer Sir Ian Rankin, Her Majesty revealed she loves reading the books by JK Rowling to her five grandchildren.
After staying silent for most of the show, Camilla said: ‘I can’t mimic voices for love or money. I’m completely hopeless at it … but my husband, he does it brilliantly. He can do all the voices.’
King Charles and Camilla look at a copy of ‘A Fleet in Being’ by Rudyard Kipling during a visit to Burwash in East Sussex in 2014
King Charles sits his grandson Prince Louis on his lap during the Platinum Jubilee Pageant outside Buckingham Palace on June 5, 2022
Camilla has been open in the past about how good Charles is with all ten of his grandchildren, which includes five by her children Tom and Laura – Lola and her brother, Freddy, plus Laura’s Eliza, Gus and Louis.
In an interview for Prince, Son & Heir – Charles at 70 in 2018, Camilla said: ‘He will get down on his knees and crawl about with them for hours, you know making funny noises and laughing and my Grandchildren adore him, absolutely adore him.
‘He reads Harry Potter and he can do all the different voices and I think children really appreciate that.’
A year earlier she claimed her husband’s performances left the grandchildren ‘spellbound’.
When talking about the books she enjoys reading to her grandchildren in the new podcast, Camilla said: ‘I think the one I enjoyed reading more than anything else was Harry Potter… all the stories.
‘I can’t mimic voices for love or money. I’m completely hopeless at it. I was a really bad actor at school and I’ve never been able to master the art of mimicry.
‘But my husband, he does it brilliantly, he can do all the voices.’
The decision to leave most of the talking to Scottish crime writer Sir Ian in the Queen’s new podcast is believed to have been a deliberate one.
A source told the Times that there was a conscious decision not to turn the podcast, which follows the success of her Queen’s Reading Room book club set up during the pandemic, into ‘the Camilla show’.
Future guests on the eight-episode series will also include Dame Joanna Lumley, author Elif Shafak, and comedian and writer David Baddiel, with the Queen expected to appear fleetingly in each one.
It had already been downloaded in more than 120 countries, with 60 per cent of its audience coming from abroad, the paper reports.
King Charles leads his daughter-in-law Princess Catherine and his grandsons Princes George and Louis (left and second left) to Christmas Morning Service at Sandringham Church on December 25, 2023
King Charles and Queen Camilla pictured arriving at Crathie Kirk near Balmoral for Sunday church service today
King Charles is seen playing with his then newborn grandson Prince Louis in TV programme Prince, Son & Heir – Charles at 70 in 2018
Charles plays with Camilla’s granddaughter, Lola, in a picture showing how he dotes on his family in documentary Prince, Son & Heir – Charles at 70 in 2018
The remarks gave listeners an insight into the seemingly-idyllic home life that Charles and Camilla have, and the importance Her Majesty places on family.
Three of her grandsons played roles at Charles’s Coronation, while the Queen was also able to spend time with her own family away from the traditional Sandringham gathering of royals over Christmas.
It comes after a BBC documentary offered people a behind the scenes look at the Royal family during Charles III’s year of Coronation.
In the film, the Queen’s sister said the couple are ‘yin and yang’ but make an utterly formidable team.
Annabel Elliot described her sister as the King’s ‘rock’, while Camilla’s close friend, Lady Lansdowne, said the fact that the couple had to ‘fight’ to be together has only strengthened their unshakeable ‘bond’.
And speaking publicly for the first time about the King and Queen’s long relationship, Princess Anne – not known for her emotional effusiveness – gave her sister-in-law the royal seal of approval.
‘I’ve known her a long time off and on. Her understanding of the role and how much difference it makes to the King has been absolutely outstanding,’ she said.
‘This role is not something that she’d be a natural for but she does it really well. She provides that change of speed and tone, that’s equally important.’