To Pinewood Studios, and a picture best captioned: “OH GOD JUST BRING BACK THE EFFING TRADE FEDERATION”.

The snap is datelined Tuesday, when Prince William was green-screened into the appearance of doing a day’s work by the state-of-the-art special effects team on the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Behold, Darth Workshy and his mildly racist sidekick, sparring in a sequence likely to throw individuals from Jar Jar Binks to bratty Anakin Jr into somewhat sympathetic relief.

But we’re running ahead of ourselves. Convention demands we set the scene with a slowly receding opening crawl, so here goes …

These are troubled times for the empire. Unrest at Darth Workshy’s £4.5m private quarters refurbishment and three-hours-a-week gig as a tauntaun search-and-rescue operative in the Hoth system has spread throughout the galaxy. Interviewed on the gilt planet by malfunctioning protocol droid Nicholas Witchell, the imperial heir has been directly confronted by the fact he is outgrafted by a 90-year-old. Though Witchell declines to go full rogue, and sneer: “I find your lack of activity disturbing”, Darth Workshy’s failure to deploy the Force choke on him indicates an emerging authority vacuum at the heart of the empire. Much depends on pod-racing Aryan whippersnapper Moff George, the new hope whose midichlorian count may decide the future of the galaxy …

So there you have it. Same as it ever was, yet all very much TO BE CONTINUED.