Diana The Musical – Netflix

Diana The Musical – Netflix (and reopening on Broadway on 17 November 2021).

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

It’s amazing how reading one-star reviews of a show can influence one’s approach to seeing it and I tuned into Netflix expecting to loathe this Broadway musical take on the iconic Diana.

Would I dare give this musical from hell no stars at all and would Musical Theatre Review’s editor even dare print it? Such thoughts clouded my first look to such an extent that, in the line of duty, I went back for a second viewing determined to start from scratch with no preconceived notions about it.

Surprise, surprise… staying the 117-minute course twice turned out to be no great hardship and although I’m not volunteering for a third, there are rewards to be had and decent songs (music and some lyrics by Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan) to be enjoyed.

Admittedly, some of the dialogue is leaden, clumsy and risibly over the top but there’s fun to be had with some outrageous rhymes – who would have thought of “Thrilla in Manila” (the tag given to the third leg of the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier trilogy) with “Camilla”, “conned” with “blonde”, “callous” with “Palace” or “skittish” with “British”?

It must have been agony for Jeanna de Waal, the British actress charged with portraying Diana, to deliver such crass lines to her new-born baby as “Harry, my ginger-haired son/You’ll always be second to none” but as you would expect from writer/lyricist Joe Di Pietro, whose I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change revue was full of wit, not everything jars as long as you accept them in the kitsch way they are written.

Diana’s “serves me right for marrying a Scorpio” and her response “you haven’t made a joke since I married you”, when Charles tries to laugh something off as a joke, are right on the mark. As is the Queen’s withering put-down “You’re the Prince of Wales, you don’t have much in common with anybody” when Charles moans about not having much in common with his childlike 12-year-younger, unworldly bride.

It transpires that innocent Sloanie Diana has been putting up photos of her dream prince on her bedroom wall from the age of 12 and her culture limited to Dame Barbara Cartland’s vast catalogue of slushy romantic fantasy novels.

A very pink Cartland (Judy Kaye gamely plays her and the stern, unbending Queen) is handed two nudge-nudge numbers on the ‘riding lessons’ Diana’s lover James Hewitt (who rides on to the stage on a pommel horse baring an impressive six-pack) is giving the Princess.

Early on, De Waal looks a bit mature for the virginal Diana but grows into the part and sings her big numbers, from the catchy ‘Underestimated’ to the sad ‘As I Love You’ and the closing ‘Light of the World’, with a simple purity.

Roe Hartrampf has the thankless task of trying to find the key to the bumbling king-in-waiting forced into a ménage a trois not entirely of his own making – Diana’s line “I’m not even the most desirable woman in my own marriage” rings painfully true.

Charles’ line “So should I just hold her handbag?” when the locals shout “don’t block the view” on a visit to his beloved Wales is perfect as he comes to the painful realisation that the saintly Diana, not he, is the headline act wherever they go.

Pick of the songs is Camilla’s lament ‘I Miss You Most on Sundays’ achingly achieved by the pick of the voices, Erin Davie, and the scene with the Queen and Diana near the end is a cracker, Her Majesty’s regal reminiscences of her own early days of marriage as ‘An Officer’s Wife’ one of the show’s most touching moments.

It was a brave decision to put Diana out on Netflix six weeks before the scheduled reopening on Broadway on 17 November (previews from 2 November). One-star reviews from respected critics are unlikely to help ticket sales although they did no harm to Les Mis, did they?

Diana was due to open on Broadway at the end of March 2020 but we all know what happened in the middle of the previews, everything shut down and, 19 months later, the show, directed by Christopher Ashley, is finally ready to roll again.

It will hold more appeal for Americans who are immensely curious about the Royal Family because they don’t have one. To illustrate that point, the first question the lady next to me asked on a long-ago transatlantic theatre trip was “Do you know the Queen Mother?”

How much you enjoy the show depends a bit on whose side you’re on, the stuffy, much-maligned Royals or the fairy tale (but conniving) princess loved by almost everyone – but not so much by her unwilling husband whose give-away retort ‘whatever ‘ in love’ means’ translates into another good song ‘Whatever Love Means Anyway’.

This version of the Royal Horror Show is clearly slanted in Diana’s direction. Her brave deeds like being the first to shake hands with ‘untouchable’ AIDS victims and daringly walking through Angolan minefields are emphasised, less so the cunning-vixen Diana bent on revenge conveyed in ‘the trouble you can cause when you’re under-estimated’, from the show’s big, catchy opening number.

Director Ashley steers us towards Diana’s use of her privileged platform for good, developing herself as a person, rather than slinking away after being spat out by the Prince and that’s obviously the way to go if you want to sell tickets.

The.paparazzi’s love affair with the Princess brings on in the comedy-dance number ‘Snap, Click’, one of several ensemble numbers which give Kelly Devine rein for some slick choreography while the ‘Snap, Click’ chorus (“a good photo of her is better than a Guinness, better than a wank, snap a few pics, it’s money in the bank”) is a reminder that a naughty word is always good for a cheap laugh.

Bruce Dow as oily butler Paul Burrell, Gareth Keegan as Hewitt, Holly Ann Butler as elder sister Sarah and Nathan Lucrezio as biographer Andrew Morton all do their bit and in ‘All the Words Came Pouring Out’ with Morton banging away on a typewriter (remember those?) is another strong number in a Marmite musical that will resonate with some and be toe-curlingly awful to others.

At the end of the day, if it is destined for cult status whatever we critics write won’t hurt it. Diana is a long way from being a great musical but then again a fair way from being the worst.

Jeremy Chapman