Here’s what caused all the petty drama in Prince Harry’s book ‘Spare’: Seating plans gone awry

Warning: the following column mentions Prince Harry.

“Viewer discretion is advised.”

I know, I know. After the full court-press in these opening weeks of 2023, the supercilious mudslinging … what, really, is there left to say? Having delved into his memoir Spare, and caught all of his many TV appearances (a glutton for punishment, c’est moi), it is what many expected it to be: blame games, back-stabs, and TMI.

Sample wolf howl: William took the better bedroom at Balmoral, with a good-sized basin and better view, while “my half was smaller, less luxurious …” (When will the misfortune ever end?)

As achy as some of his thoughts are on the death of his mother (probably the best parts of the book), it was hard for me to not to see most of this exercise as a cash-grab masked as “self-care.” Money, money, money, as the ABBA ditty goes. Positioning yourself in the Celebrity Economy where disclosure (and parcelling off bits of yourself) is the name of the game.

The most interesting, surprising thing about the book? How much it reminded me of my beloved “Real Housewives.” Being what they call a “Bravoholic” (and having watched, oh, maybe, 10,000 hours of Housewives), there is no level of pettiness I have not been privy to, and no level of petty that is not a stand-in (or projection), I know, for … well … deeper wounds. You might say I have a PhD in petty.

Of the cold war between the Sussexes and the Prince and Princess of Wales, I was actually most reminded of the never-ending in-laws fight between the Giudices and the Gorgas, as depicted on “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.” A war that famously started, more than a decade ago, when Melissa brought her sister-in-law, Teresa, “sprinkle cookies,” for Christmas, which Teresa hates and which she promptly threw in the garbage. Presto: a rivalry that has now lasted through divorces, remarriages, stints in jail, and deaths of parents.

Of course, it was never about the “sprinkle cookies,” just like it is was never about the “bridesmaid dresses,” re: Kate and Meghan. Nor is it the fresh revelation that Harry makes in the book that at his wedding reception (the one with the 10-hour slow-roasted Windsor pork belly), William and Kate changed the place cards at the last minute at their table!

The reason? Harry and Meghan had deigned to follow in the more American tradition of allowing couples to sit together at tables, rather than the more British custom to sit spouses separately. Wills and Kate deny they were the ones who made the switch, but here we are.

Seating plans! A subject, finally, that we could dig into! Myself, I tend to lean in the direction of veteran D.C. journalist (and über-hostess) Sally Quinn, widow of legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. She once mused: “I find that it saps the energy from the table when spouses are practically in each other’s laps … If it’s a large dinner and couples are at the same table, that’s fine, but they still shouldn’t be right next to each other.”

Continued Quinn: “If you’re sitting next to someone else, you’re going to learn something about that person, his or her ideas and opinions … It’s a challenge, an opportunity, an occasion! It totally changes the dynamics and it electrifies the table.”

Checking in with Amy Burstyn Fritz, a sunny member of the younger social scene, here in Toronto, I got her views on the subject, too. A co-founder of the Vogue-approved tableware brand Misette she knows a thing or two about seating plans, after all: “Where you seat your guests at a dinner party can make or break the evening. At a formal dinner party I always like to place seating cards and generally prefer to separate couples so they have an opportunity to mix and mingle to keep it fresh! Instead of seating guests by relations, I seat them by interests and place people next to each other that I know would connect over conversation topics. It’s a style I learned from my mother, who is known for her dinner parties and will often move guests between courses to mix it up even more, which is something I’ve adopted as well.”

One caveat, though. The most important thing, added Fritz, “is to know your audience and tailor your seating plan around who is coming to dinner. When I have guests coming that are more on the shy side, I’ll sometimes break my own rules and put them next to their partners to ensure they feel comfortable and enjoy the evening.”

My thoughts also turned to Joan Rivers — known for her lavish dinners at her over the top Upper East Side pad, during her time. She was on to something, I think, with her seating modus operandi. She never placed partners beside one another, and furthermore, she made a point of giving cheat sheets to guests, I remember reading.

According to the principles of Joan, “Nobody can get up later and say, ‘Who knew he discovered penicillin?’ or, as you walk out the door, ‘I had no idea he slept with Angelina Jolie!’”

Indeed, my feeling is why bother leaving the house at all if you need to be Krazy-glued to the one that brought ya? The politics of place cards itself is a tricky business, it is true (how many times have I caught should-know-better socialites switching their place cards before a din-din — or special requests being made in advance), but here’s the thing: sticking with the same-old makes you lazy. Social skills, like any other muscle, have to be exercised; otherwise they get lumpy. (We certainly learned that during the pandemic?)

And the vogue for spousal security blankets? They’re likely to make us conversationally hunchbacked.

Seating, alas, is an art — as is a well-designed life. And if Harry’s memoir is evidence of anything at all, when it comes to the trivialities of human existence, it is this: royals, they’re just like us!

Shinan Govani is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist covering culture and society. Follow him on Twitter: @shinangovani

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