Diana The Musical (2021, Astonishingly Bad In A Hilarious Way)

[Small Man Big Horse]

This could have been called "Saint Diana" given how much it adores her and shows her in a never less than positive light, and fuck me, it's one of the funniest things I've seen in years, certain scenes could be straight out of an episode of Brass Eye as it handles aspects of her life in an extremely clumsy manner. Starting when she first meets the prince aged 19 initially Diana's a bit naïve and everyone thinks she's stupid, but she slowly works out how to handle the Royal family and the fame game, and desperately tries to keep the marriage going despite her husband being a right old turd. The paparazzi are ridiculously villainous pantomime baddies, and though occasionally he is seen sympathetically mostly Charles is a jealous, selfish cheating bastard, though sadly they don't make The Queen evil, most of the time she just wants the public to adore the Royal Family but has occasional moments of decency so this is clearly not based on the truth, and alas Phillip isn't in it, so we don't get a song about him killing Diana. What makes it such an amazing gem are the songs though, the lyrics are preposterously silly, and though the majority are about love, lust and fame it also covers Diana self harming and being nice to people with AIDS, and well, it's beyond absurd and then some, which is why I loved it. 8.4/10, though non-musical fans / anyone who takes the royal family seriously would probably rate it 2/10.

Here are some of my favourite moments, starting with this song where Diana wishes Charles wasn't so stuffy:



An early argument between the couple:



James Hewitt gets his own song when he enters the stage bare chested:



And in moments that I swear I'm not making up, Barbara Cartland sings about how good in bed he is:



Andrew Morton sings!



Diana strikes back!



One furious Charles:



Paul Burrell and Diana sing about stealing the limelight from the Prince:



And I'll stop now as I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Can't believe this is on Netflix. Watching this now. It reminds me of The Play That Goes Wrong only nothing goes wrong with the production.

So we've had a film and a musical. What next, a board game? An OFAH tribute episode?

Great dialogue

"Cufflinks. I'm sure you've got dozens."
"Hundreds"
"Well, I saved the receipt"

[olliebean]

Quite obvious at many points how desperately it wants to be Evita. TBH I think it could work a lot better if they embraced how bad it is, and camped up the performances and costumes to have more of a Drag Race or Rocky Horror feel.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Quite obvious at many points how desperately it wants to be Evita. TBH I think it could work a lot better if they embraced how bad it is, and camped up the performances and costumes to have more of a Drag Race or Rocky Horror feel.

I've never seen Evita but definitely agree with you, it wouldn't have taken much to camp it up either, just have the Queen more villainous, Charles less sympathetic, and you'd have an intentionally funny romp on your hands, instead of the opposite applying.

[Glebe]

Incredible!

[idunnosomename]

well does she cunt into a concrete pillar at the end or not

[olliebean]

Not. (She dies, but no details are given.)

Apparently though there's at least a couple of other Princess Diana musicals on YouTube and at least one of them includes the crash.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

I'm impressed by how thoroughly Diana: The Opera (aka When She Died: Death Of A Princess) has been scrubbed from existence after it's one and only 2002 showing on Channel 4.

This was the one which was sparked TABLOID OUTRAGE for about five minutes as it features a scene where one character employs a prostitute to dress up as Dead Di and "performs a bizarre ritual over her naked body"

[idunnosomename]

[Glebe]