Diana: The Musical tipped to win "worst picture"
A Broadway musical based on the life of Princess Diana has been slammed by theatre critics, with many expecting it to win "worst picture" at the Razzie Awards.
Diana: The Musical has been nominated for nine Razzie Awards, which name and shame the biggest film flops of the year, including worst picture, actress and actor.
The musical debuted on Broadway in November 2021, after being delayed 18 months due to the pandemic, and a film version is set to be released on Netflix later this year.
The Evening Standard, The Times and the Chicago Tribune all gave Diana: The Musical damning one-star reviews, while audiences slammed the songs for being insensitive and cringe-worthy.
The show was created by Joe DiPietro and David Bryan (Bon Jovi’s keyboardist), and stars Jeanna de Waal as Princess Diana, Roe Hartrampf as Prince Charles, Judy Kaye as the Queen, and Erin Davie who "turns Camilla Parker Bowles into the Wicked Witch of the West".
At one point, Diana sings how she "wishes Charles was Elton John" before adding, "Alright, I'm no intellect/but maybe there's a discotheque/where the prince could hear Prince and we'd all get Funkadellic."
Later, she sings to her infant son, "Harry my ginger-haired son / You’ll always be second to none."
In a review of the show for Vanity Fair, Richard Lawson wrote that the lyrics are not "meant to be silly and campy", despite how they might read on paper.
"They are just the stilted, embarrassingly serious ramblings of a show that has no interest in real humanity."
Theatre goers have also questioned the accuracy of the musical, with Daily Mail's Dan Wootton recalling, "Diana: The Musical is the most offensive and degrading portrayal of the late Princess of Wales in fiction since her death in 1997 – and in terms of accuracy it makes that other historically-derided Netflix series The Crown look like a royal encyclopaedia of truth."
The Razzie winners will be announced on March 26th: the day before the 2022 Oscars.
Image credits: Getty Images