If it were any better, it would actually be a terrible pity: Diana – The Musical reviewed

This week, an excellent film (Moving On) and a film that isn’t at all, but is entirely worth it as it’s one of the super bad ones that don’t come along too often. It’s the kind that, if it were any better, it would actually be a terrible pity. (See also: Cats.) It’s Diana: The Musical and it’s two hours of ‘whaaaaaat?’ and pinching yourself that this is really happening. (After two hours I was black and blue, with the pinching.) I don’t know what the best lyric is but ‘Harry, my ginger-haired son, you’ll always be second to none’ has to be up there. (Also: ‘It’s the Thrilla in Manila but with Diana and Camilla’ has to be in the game. The top spot is highly contested.)

It is wonderfully unfathomable on every level. It is the Broadway show filmed in an empty theatre last summer while the production was on pause due to the pandemic. But it returns to Broadway next month, so why they’re releasing this now is most peculiar. And if that’s not peculiar enough, the music and lyrics have been co-written by Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan. (When James Hewitt takes Diana to bed, we have this lyric: ‘James Hewitt, he did do it…’) Meanwhile, the British musical actress Jeanna de Waal stars as a Diana who has been styled to look like Clare Balding. No disrespect to Clare Balding, but I ask you: did anyone ever mistake Princess Diana for Clare Balding?

I could go on and therefore will. The oft-told narrative — this doesn’t say anything new — tells us she was a shy 19-year-old virgin who didn’t know what she was letting herself in for when she married Prince Charles (Roe Hartrampf), then it speeds through events like a deranged Wikipedia entry.