Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been selfishly coy about their love story, which is endlessly frustrating to anyone who believes they’re owed every detail of a celebrity relationship. Being royal, they are particularly private and so there seems very little chance – bar the explosive claims of Meghan Markle’s estranged siblings – that we will ever know what truly goes down between the ginger prince and his American love.

That is, until the Lifetime channel got involved. Now, thanks to the tele-movie Harry and Meghan: A Royal Romance, we have an entirely fictionalised, definitely unauthorised depiction of exactly what happened when Harry met Meghan. There’s even a sex scene to scandalise the Queen. It is shameless, fabulous and entirely compulsory watching.

Starring Scottish actor Murray Fraser as Harry and American actress Parisa Fitz-Henley as Meghan, the Lifetime movie begins with Harry turning up 40 minutes late to his blind date with Meghan, who takes the opportunity to teach him how to use a watch – a gesture he finds so charming, he falls instantly in love with her. The remainder of the film includes Princess Diana reincarnated as a lion, a surprise clue about his heritage from Harry’s grandmother, the Queen of England, and a girls’ night out with Kate Middleton and Meghan. In the grand tradition of Lifetime movies, it is salacious without reserve.

The curious appeal of Harry and Meghan's Lifetime movie