Prince William as you've never seen him before: Behind-the-scenes snaps show relaxed future King

Kensington Palace has released new images showing Prince William as we've never seen him before.

The future King is seen with his shirt unbuttoned to reveal some chest hair, sitting with a beer and Indian takeaway, having a laugh with the boys.

The shots were taken behind-the-scenes of BBC Radio Five Live's That Peter Crouch Podcast recording done in March, before the coronavirus pandemic led to lockdowns in the UK.

The group, which included Peter Crouch, Tom Fordyce and Chris Stark, shared plenty of laughs during their wide-ranging chat.

The Duke of Cambridge revealed some of his favourite foods and his go-to singalong song, and gave listeners the goss on a friend's stag-do at the football and that time he got a policeman to pretend he was aiming a sniper rifle at a football player.

"A long time ago, I got one of my policemen to take a laser pen out with them. And I got him to red mark, red dot one of the players," Wills revealed, adding that he was only about 15 at the time.

Crouch, a former Liverpool, Tottenham and Portsmouth player, clarifying with a laugh: "Pretending to have a sniper on him?"

"Exactly it, it put him off for about you know 10 minutes," Wills replied.

At the start of the podcast Prince William answers a knock at the door of the reception room to find Crouch's favourite West London Indian takeaway has sent over some food, quipping: "There's an Uber driver out there on the floor being frisked".

When pressed about his favourite dish, the Duke said: "Chicken masala, love that, a bit of flavour – I'm not a vindaloo man, put it that way."

Prince William also confessed is his go-to singalong song is by the aptly named band, Queen.

"To be honest, I'm not going to lie I haven't sung karaoke for a while now, but probably Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody," he said, adding: "It's one of the few songs I know all the lyrics to."

As for the stag-do, Prince William — an ardent Aston Villa fan — clarified it wasn't his own bucks party but said he had been to a Blackpool game, followed by a trip to a theme park, which he doesn't advise others try.

"It was a good game and we went on the theme park in the afternoon, which, after you've had a few beers on a stag-do, is not pretty."

Of course at the heart of the special podcast recording was Prince William's passionate cause – men's mental health.

The 38-year-old recorded the episode as part of his Heads Up initiative, which he launched last May, bringing together the Football Association and The Royal Foundation's Heads Together charity.