TINA WEAVER: Don't fall out with Kate, Meghan... she'll be the boss one day

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Put yourself for a moment in Meghan Markle’s £1,000 Manolo Blahnik pumps. You’ve landed the biggest role of your life. The whole world is your stage. Forget about the four-million who tuned into Suits each week – now billions are watching.

They’re agog at your every utterance, each natty little outfit, the constant caressing of your (barely there) bump, and how your puppy-dog eyes are permanently locked on to Harry, the nation’s favourite son. This is the greatest gig ever, so you’re not about to blow it.

A dynamic backroom team is corralled. High-powered meetings with crisp agendas are set. Empowering speeches solemnly written as your credentials as humanitarian, philanthropist and feminist are polished to a perfect sheen.

You’ve said you ‘want to make a tangible impact… this kind of work feeds my soul’.

So you swept into this fusty old dynasty like a human whirlwind. Cripes, I feel exhausted just writing about it.

Kate's speeches are businesslike, carefully worded and modest – a stark contrast to Meghan’s brand of right-on feminism delivered with fire and vigour

When you joined the cast of The Firm you were billed as a breath of fresh air. Biracial, divorced, glittering career – a modern woman who had already lived a life.

What you hadn’t anticipated is that the Royal Family hates to be upstaged. Your worldliness, a need to publicly address hot-button issues like abortion, has got courtiers reaching for the smelling salts.

In the change-averse Palace corridors, the passion, zeal and determination you displayed to make it in Hollywood are not attributes to be celebrated. When you became HRH the Duchess of Sussex, your previous title ‘MSH’ Markle (Make S*** Happen) should have been retired.

Firing off emails to staff at 5am may be an efficient way to get results while you’re on the set of a TV show, but in the polite ‘would you mind awfully if…’ world you now inhabit, they risk coming across as domineering and controlling.

Perhaps it was waking to one of those ‘helpful’ emails that cost you not one, but three members of staff in only six months. But as you’ve said: ‘It’s always been important to me to be vocal about what I feel is right.’

That explains why you incurred the displeasure of the Palace by asking for air fresheners to improve the ‘musty’ atmosphere of St George’s Chapel – where successive monarchs have worshipped since 1475 – before your wedding.

Kate, who hasn’t put an LK Bennett-clad foot wrong in the 17 years she’s been in harness,  has been a faithful servant to the Crown

Then there’s the rest of the family. Dear, dignified, demure sister-in-law Kate who hasn’t put an LK Bennett-clad foot wrong in the 17 years she’s been in harness. She’s been a faithful servant to the Crown. 

She has produced heirs, buoyed up our future King, who has his father’s weakness for melancholic introspection, and done her duty. Her speeches are businesslike, carefully worded and modest – a stark contrast to Meghan’s brand of right-on feminism delivered with fire and vigour.

When Hurricane Meghan blew into town, it was no wonder Kate felt buffeted. That there has been tension between them was to be expected. The surprise is anybody ever thought these two very different women would want each other on speed dial.

A friend recently attended a dinner where both were present and was struck by how unlike each other they were. While Kate’s regal reserve came across as stiff, Meghan was all chatty chumminess.

Ultimately, the challenge facing Meghan is whether she can change the Royals – or whether they’ll change her. In the 12 months since her engagement, she has shaken up The Firm, encouraged to challenge the status quo by her besotted husband.

Right now she’s winning, not least because she enjoys the approval and indulgence of the Queen and Prince of Wales, who are both taken with her. But she needs to tread carefully. It’s William and Kate – our future King and Queen – who will one day be running the show.

So making an enemy of Kate and driving a wedge between two brothers who have supported each other unflinchingly through tragedy and turbulence is asking for double trouble.

A nanny from hell? 

Looking at gorgeous Emily Blunt in her plunging white gown at the LA Mary Poppins premier – and as someone who’s employed quite a few childcarers over the years – two things struck me: I must book tickets to see this wonderful remake. And what mother in their right mind would want to make the morning breakfast rush even more traumatic by having perfect Emily gliding around the kitchen table?

Emily Blunt arrives at the premiere of Disney's 'Mary Poppins Returns' at the El Capitan Theatre

I now treat Brexit in the same way one sometimes pretends to have read a classic book: I shake my head sadly – or nod vigorously – when a broad view is expressed; use the phrase ‘I find parts problematic’ when the debate gets down to the nitty gritty; and if really stumped, exclaim: ‘Isn’t Harry Redknapp wonderful on I’m A Celebrity?’ Like everyone, I try to follow the twists and turns of the biggest botch job in living memory. But – like everyone – I just want us to get on with it now and talk about something else.

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Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin ‘consciously uncoupling’ was cringe-making enough. But now actor Michael Sheen has revealed a comically right-on excuse for breaking up: Brexit. The Welsh star ended his four-year relationship with US comedienne Sarah Silverman because he wanted to move back to Britain from LA to find out why so many people wanted out of the EU. She, in turn, decided to travel America talking to people about why they voted for Trump. Their pillow talk must have been riveting.

Hercule Poirot is to lose his iconic Belgian accent in the BBC’s Agatha Christie drama at Christmas. John Malkovich is giving the world’s most famous detective the tones of an English gentleman to reflect Poirot’s 20 years of living in England. Do the producers not realise that for Poirot diehards this is sacrilege on a par with the Queen delivering her Christmas message in a comedy Scottish voice?

The Crown star Claire Foy’s latest film, The Girl In The Spider’s Web, has had a rough ride from critics. Maybe channelling Edmund Blackadder for the role wasn’t such a good idea? 

The Crown star Claire Foy’s latest film, The Girl In The Spider’s Web, has had a rough ride from critics. Maybe channelling Edmund Blackadder for the role wasn’t such a good idea?

In her irritatingly titled new book Why French Women Feel Young At 50, sultry author Mylene Desclaux (dumped by her man for a 37-year-old) shares gems such as these: Never wear culottes. Change your first name if it’s dated. Don’t throw a 50th birthday party.

Mylene trills that sparrow-like French First Lady Brigitte Macron is a paragon of empowerment. Perhaps she could add another ‘rule’ with Madame Macron in mind: Women of 65 with bony knees should ditch their mini-skirts.

Jennifer Aniston says she got over her break-up from Justin Theroux by having lots of therapy. This followed FOUR years of the same after she split with Brad Pitt. If Jen spent more time enjoying life and less painfully analysing it, she may just find the happiness that seems to elude her.

Please don't die of forgetfulness 

At 28, Beth has cancer rampaging through her young body. The words ‘if only’ haunt her. For Beth didn’t go for a smear test. Too busy, too embarrassed, just forgetful – everyday excuses to put off three minutes of slight discomfort that could save our lives.

Beth is one of a staggering 1.2 million women who didn’t bother to go for this vital check in 2017-18 as screenings dipped to a 21-year low. What makes her suffering all the more tragic is that, in the usually one-sided war scientists are waging against cancer, this is one of the great wins.

Screening, and discovering a link between the HPV virus and cervical cancer, have made this savage disease preventable. The biggest cancer killer of young women can now be halted. Better still, our school-aged daughters are now being vaccinated against the HPV virus, too. This should be a cause of celebration. But the grim reality is that cervical cancer cases are rising and women are dying needlessly.

While running the charity Wellbeing Of Women for the past two years, I’ve learned we have to take ownership of our own health.