Kirsty Young lifts a worthy BBC in battle of the wedding broadcasters

So who won the broadcasting contest? The BBC’s Huw Edwards was sonorous, and not playful enough – but Kirsty Young wholly rescued the morning, commending George Clooney at one stage for walking slowly, having recognised wife Amal was in high heels; you could hear the gratefulness in Kirsty’s tones.

The BBC, bizarrely, intercut its privileged coverage with interminable interviews – good causes, the stigma of Aids, the raising of black profiles – but all roughly 10 yawning minutes too long.

ITV’s Phillip Schofield and Julie Etchingham rightly kept it light. Good interplay between them, too. After Schofield, watching the gum-chewing Joss Stone, clutched rather desperately at “interestingly, as Harry’s just been confirmed as the second Duke of Sussex, the first duke, who died in 1843, was said to have a very good singing voice”, Etchingham sallied drily: “We’ve got to keep this going until three o’clock. I hope you’ve got some other ‘interesting’ facts on the dukes of Sussex.”

Happily, when the Most Rev Michael Curry transfixed us all, this was one of the kind of off-limits sections, televisually speaking: we didn’t want or need jabbering voiceover interpretation. That came soon enough, however, Edwards outdoing even his usual Eeyoreness by damning the sermon as “forceful … uplifting” yet somehow making both words sound as spritzy as a manual for a thermostat.

I had come all curmudgeon-ready, determined to not enjoy the coverage, especially as the day before Naga Munchetty, on BBC Breakfast, had reacted grouchily after the wedding hype was given a lukewarm welcome from the vox-popped people of Manchester. “Well,” she sulked, “I suppose everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.” Gracious of you, Naga. And I thought you were one of the good ones.

But cynicism fled around the time of Curry’s address, if not long before. A perfect day, an undoubtedly beautiful bride, understated makeup and (I’m told) fabulously suitable dress … and Windsor’s glories, and Elgar’s Chanson de Matin playing as the brothers were revealed, in their Blues and Royals frock-coats. I even (almost) managed to forget Windsor council’s forcible repatriation of rough sleepers – only to have hundreds of royalists sleeping on the streets.

The music, and the poetry of the speeches, got me, as I should have known they would: the long-shot from the nave into the quire, through Philippa Craddock flowers, as the choir sang John Rutter’s searingly lovely The Lord Bless You And Keep You; Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s cello; and, in general, the preponderance of gleeful black faces, in the crowds and in the church.

Oprah didn’t look that gleeful however, having perhaps turned up a little early. She looked lost, fiddling between pews with her bag and invite, like one of those US “dollar princesses” who married aristocracy in the 1890s and were thence shunned by both society and their servants as déclassé. She was rescued by, of all people, Charles Spencer. And who’da thunk that?

Back among the presenters, Sky’s Kay Burley had a whale of a time, forcefully lifting a gorgeous little child over a barrier to show the camera her wedding dress. This was not a day to be worthy. This was a day to be with people, in the sun, and to enjoy the music.