Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix series Polo: JANE FRYER’S VERDICT

Polo

Judgement:

Another Christmas, another creative offering from Harry and Meghan, those titans of television, forever lounging around their Montecito mansion.

Two years ago, we had the six-part Harry & Meghan miniseries – the first program of their $100 million Netflix deal, which they promised would produce “content that informs but also gives hope” through a “truthful and relatable lens.”

Since then we’ve had one decent documentary about Harry’s Invictus Games and another, less good one, about leadership.

Their $20 million Archetypes podcast for Spotify was canceled in 2023 after just 13 episodes. And despite there being a lot of talk about a Meghan cooking show, there is still no show.

But none of that has dampened their spirits. Because now they bring us Polo.

Sadly not the next series of the brilliantly mischievous adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire romp-a-thon, courtesy of Disney+. But instead a five-part docuseries about the breathtaking elite world of polo, which will ‘pull back the curtain on the daring and passion of the sport’.

To be honest, it shows quite a bit of promise in the opening moments.

That we will enjoy ‘one of the most exciting sports you can imagine’. Full of ‘dirty, sweaty, sexy boys – riding…’, lots of drama and tension, and a man in a fuchsia pink polo shirt angrily smashing a cool box with his polo stick.

Perfect for a wet Wednesday in London. You would think.

The ‘drama’ revolves around the run-up to the World Cup in Florida, where many very slim women with very smooth faces and less smooth necks will cheer on muscular men who take it all very seriously.

“Every time we go there, our lives are at stake,” says one polo player, as if he were a firefighter or a Marine or perhaps a disaster relief worker.

‘Polo is not just a sport. Polo is a lifestyle. We eat, we breathe, we sleep polo!’ shouts another.

And they’re clearly working hard at it, because they’re all beautifully muscular and toned, with amazingly white teeth, strong forearms, very expensive watches, Louis Vuitton weekend bags and chests like brick walls.

We see them lifting weights and skydiving, deep sea fishing and driving expensive cars with fancy leather interiors as dramatic music swirls.

And we learn that Tim Dutta, 22, is a sweet boy who is financed by his overbearing father who always shouts ‘we are here for one thing and that is to win’, and spoiled by his mother. But at least he seems to really love his horses.

Meghan kissed Harry after his team, the Royal Salute Sentebale, won the charity competition from episode five of the docu-series

Harry and Meghan’s $20 million Archetypes podcast for Spotify was canceled in 2023 after just thirteen episodes

Nacho Figueras and Delfina Blaquier with Meghan and Harry at the Royal Salute Polo Challenge in aid of Sentebale in April

That Adolfo Cambiaso, from Argentina, is the ‘Michael Jordan of Polo’.

And that Louis Devaleix, the disgusting patron and player of a team called La Fe, is the coolbox squatter – and also has biceps the size of hams, a mean temper, a pregnant wife and doesn’t seem to care much about his ponies.

“I don’t even know what my damn horses are called!” he says.

It seems strange that executive producers Harry and Meghan were so desperate to share this horrific world with the rest of us.

But despite criticism that the sport is ferociously elitist, a carbon disaster and not always fun for the poor ponies – for God’s sake, don’t get Peta started on that – Meghan is said to love the whole polo scene.

And according to his best friend and fellow polo player, Nacho Figueras, it has always been Harry’s “dream and passion to share with the world what it takes to be a truly competitive polo player.”

But unfortunately not personally.

Because while they were “very hands-on” in the making, they don’t really participate in it – except for Harry’s five-second cameo in the third minute and a joint, brief appearance in episode five.

But their ridiculous polo friends do their best to make up for that – explaining to us novices that there are four in a team, six ‘chukkas’ (play periods) of seven and a half minutes in a match and that riders change horses ‘like Formula 1 drivers’.

And strut around in tight pants, popping confetti-filled balloons to pick fixtures, flashing their bare breasts, and making ridiculous comments like “polo gives me hope that I can achieve something” and “He was handmade by God to play polo to play’. ‘.

As awful as it all is, I wonder if in the right hands it could have been fun, guilty pleasure TV – some sort of brilliant mix of Rivals, Selling Sunset and Made in Wrexham, which had us screaming at the television in horror joy.

Instead, it’s somehow flat, plodding and actually quite boring. And if it tried, it couldn’t be further from “content that informs but also gives hope.”