The filmed performance of “Diana: The Musical” was released through Netflix on Oct. 1, with its Broadway opening night scheduled to be Nov. 17. A musical about the well-loved British royal was anticipated by many in hopes of putting the former Princess of Wales’ story in a new light. However, it became apparent that the show did not live up to expectations and, in fact, had a hard time even coming close to being praise-worthy. Told through a series of musical numbers, the show features two hours of a retelling that offers little to no new insight and an overly gaudy presentation that seems almost disrespectful to the real Diana.
The musical follows the life of Lady Diana Spencer (Jeanna de Waal) and how she came to be known as the “People’s Princess.” Despite having little in common with Charles (Roe Hartrampf), 19-year-old Diana accepts his hand in marriage. The world falls in love with her quickly for her candidness, but her husband seems to fall out of love with her at the same pace — Charles and his mistress Camilla (Erin Davie) continue to see each other, and his unfaithfulness causes Diana’s mental health to worsen. Eventually, Diana becomes involved in her own affair with a war hero named James Hewitt (Gareth Keegan) while her marriage with Charles seems more and more hopeless by the second. She contacts a writer to convey her side to the public, and Charles attempts to do the same, ultimately leading to the end of their marriage.
The musical medium should be able to showcase Diana’s story in a new way through memorable numbers and dance sequences; however, “Diana: The Musical” does none of the above. The music itself is boring and forgettable, incomparable to Broadway predecessors such as “The Music of the Night,” “Memory” and “Defying Gravity” that define the works they belong to. The songs all blur together as you watch more of the show, even though there was an attempt to reprise key songs throughout the performance. Such an attempt of making pieces more memorable proved greatly ineffective. In addition, there was little choreography that stood out to the eye, making it yet another mediocre performance.
The lack of specialty in the music is worsened by the lyrics, which are simply forced and cheesy. In a musical number depicting the paparazzi, a group of stalkers in trench coats and fedoras boast about their job, singing: “better than a Guinness, better than a wank / snatch a few pics, it’s money in the bank.” When Diana laments about her marriage, she sings: “serves me right for marrying a Scorpio,” which was simply out of place and pointless. On top of everything, the song “The Dress” refers to Diana’s iconic Revenge Dress as a “feckity-feckity feckity-feckity feck you dress,” which is sung over and over again as if it makes the song any less cringe-worthy.
The song “Here Comes James Hewitt” in the second act includes a type of vulgar humor that feels disrespectful to Diana’s story. A half-naked James is introduced as a group of women danced around him, fawning over his attractiveness. Horrified, audience members watched James and Diana have the following conversation:
“There’s only one type of lesson I offer: riding lessons,” James says. Diana pauses to eye him from head to toe as the ensemble sings his name.
“I assumed your husband gives you riding lessons,” James continues, to which Diana replies, “He’s tried. He’s not very good.”
“Perhaps he just doesn’t have the right horse,” James says.
Diana looks at him, smiling. “And do you have the right horse?”
“Your Royal Highness, I think you’d adore my horse,” James grins.
It is hard to imagine who exactly green-lighted this set of lines, alongside many of the other lyrics that seem to be the product of plugging words into RhymeZone. Perhaps a musical was the wrong medium for a retelling of Diana’s life; at the very least, “Diana: The Musical” did not do it very well. A story of depression and oppression depicted through overly upbeat and tacky performances missed the entirety of the point of Diana’s story.
However, that is not to say that the actors did a horrible job; the vocals of the main cast are incredible and they delivered the musical numbers to the best of their abilities considering what they were given to work with. De Waal and Hartrampf both play their characters well, showing realistic renditions of Diana’s kindness and warmth as well as Charles’ self-centeredness and propriety. Nonetheless, their talented delivery does not make up for the rest of the faults in the musical.
“Diana: the Musical” had the potential to be something unique; however, it ultimately failed due to bad writing. If you want a more realistic retelling of Lady Diana Spencer’s life, perhaps look forward to the biopic “Spencer” starring Kristen Stewart releasing Nov. 5 instead.
Grace Tu is an Arts and Entertainment Intern for the fall 2021 quarter. She can be reached at tug2@uci.edu.