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Look, I’m all for “so bad it’s actually good” entertainment. I have more than once made friends watch Troll 2. I once sat in a bar for several hours longer than I expected because they were running a Sharknado marathon and what else should I do that day. Diane: the musical, streaming now on Netflix, wants what these movies have. Or, I guess, to put it in Broadway terms, he wants what Spring for Hitler– the musical that’s supposed to be horrible on the inside The producers which turns out to be an accidental megahit — a. He condemns himself from the start by attempting to straddle the border between austere, historical drama, The crown, and the camp and glitter of an 80s pop music video.
Watching this thing will make you wish that mankind never learned to rhyme.
Diane: the musical was scheduled to open in March 2020, but, well, you know what happened next. More than a year later, the show is set to hit Broadway in November, with the proshot version on Netflix a month earlier to, in theory, boost ticket sales. It’s hard to imagine anything other than the opposite happening here. Watching this thing will make you regret that humanity never learned to rhyme. This will convince you that we should ban children from reading Dr Seuss’ books lest they be inspired to grow up to write something so painful. (Warning: spoilers ahead, but you should really read them and save yourself two hours looking at this mess.) “She will have a place in our history books and she will be forever judged by how she looks,” sings the chorus in the opening number, setting the tone for what you’re about to endure for the next hour. In fact, in relation to what’s to come, take a moment to savor this line. You’ll want it the moment Diana inexplicably begins to sing a love song to Charles in Spanish. Or when you start to mentally count the number of words this show rhymes with Tart. Or when Diana goes to an AIDS treatment ward in a hospital and a patient sings, “I may not be well, but I’m beautiful as hell” and she offers to send her a case of ‘eyeliner.
The paparazzi, the relentless press who stalked Diana literally until her death, punctuate the whole show. On stage, they’re a choreographed mass of swirling trench coats, like a flock of vultures – which might be decent, if obvious, symbolism if the show just let you mentally connect the dots instead of hitting yourself on the back. head with and having the Paps actually refer to themselves as vultures. These vulturazzi are the origin of the best line from Act 1, “Better than Guinness, Better than Handjob / Take some pictures, it’s money in the bank.” In Act 2, Prince Charles tells Diana that it was his “fault” that their marriage “ended” and that he “ceased to be a martyr” and to be “smarter. “. Once again, you will find yourself regretting the banality of “looks” / “books”.
The problem here is not to rhyme jerk off and Bank, really. There’s a world where it’s stupidly funny, where British novelist Barbara Cartland (Judy Kaye) – Diana’s stepmother – comes in and out of the show as an omniscient, albeit unreliable, narrator dressed in a frilly pink dress might work. But just when you think the show is going to allow you to fully immerse yourself in some insane fantasy and accept that it is so far removed from reality that the characters might as well be fictional, it tries to convince you that ‘She is serious. Diana, played by Jeanna de Waal, sings “I Will” – a catchy number until you realize you’re humming Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” – in the panicked moments before her. marriage with Charles, as if that all did not prepare for his violent death and as if she had the slightest control over this situation. At every turn, the show’s attempts to give Diana’s character agency only serve to insult her memory. “My future is my design, my story is finally mine,” she sings in the last issue before the car accident, as if this were true. De Waal said she believed that if she was alive, Diana would “definitely” enjoy the show.
Nowhere do you want Diane: the musical just be full Rocky Horror Picture Show as much as at the opening of act 2 when Diana’s lover rises, shirtless, from a trap door in the ground at the top of a saddle. He and Diana have a conversation full of innuendo about learning to ride, a conversation that prompts Barbara Cartland to turn to the audience and admit that she made it up, as if that statement didn’t fit. did not apply to the vast majority of the musical. The second act is full of these meta-moments. Camilla, Diana and Charles face off inside a boxing ring under the gaze of friends, “the Thrilla in Manila with Diana and Camilla”. (Camilla also rhymes with “Godzilla,” lest you think this show skipped that particularly poetic opportunity.) Diana’s infamous off-the-shoulder “revenge dress” also has its own number, called “The Dress”. . She’s described as “a bitch on wheels with 6 inch heels” and the chorus, over and over again, calls the LBD “the feckity-feckity-feckity-feckity-feck you dress” (a slightly, uh, cleaner version) of the song that the version I saw during a preview in 2020, presumably put away for the sake of Netflix).
But in between all that, Diane: the musical over and over again tries to give the show a gravity where it should fully engage in fantasy. The creators clearly didn’t have the feelings of Diana’s two children in mind, for example, when creating this thing. In the final scenes, as the Queen grants the couple a divorce and Diana refuses royal security, she sings about the decision to “choose happiness”, to “choose whatever awaits her”. This is the paradox of the whole show. Diana had no choice in the matter. However, you have a choice not to watch this thing. Choose wisely.
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