DIANA: THE MUSICAL On Netflix - News & Discussion Thread- Page 4

[fredric47]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 3:43am

I pay approximately $9.00 per month for my Netfix subscription. The musical, "Diana: The Musical" is worth no more than this amount to view. Anyone seeing the show on Broadway will be ripped off. The songs left no impression at all on me. They all sound alike. The actors try hard to assume the roles of Diana, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, Camilla Parker-Bowles, and James Hewitt..But they are mostly postering rather than performing their roles. Princess Diama and Queen Elizabeth II deserve a whole lot better musical than this one. 

[Dolly80]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 4:10am

Step aside Springtime for Hitler.

It truly is dreadful. The songs. THE LYRICS.. the wigs.. the horrible dancing ensemble. THE ACCENTS. I don’t know who Judy Kaye was pretending to be, but it was nothing like the Queen.

Poor Jeanna de Waal. She does all she can but she’s on a sinking ship.

Glad to say that this will never set foot in the UK.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 8:37am

I’d be curious to know what alternate staging, if any, they have planned in the event that act one finale quick change malfunctions.

[<3Ragtime2]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 8:53am

Dolly80 said: "Step aside Springtime for Hitler.

It truly is dreadful. The songs. THE LYRICS.. the wigs.. the horrible dancing ensemble. THE ACCENTS. I don’t know who Judy Kaye was pretending to be, but it was nothing like the Queen.

Poor Jeanna de Waal. She does all she can but she’s on a sinking ship.

Glad to say that this will never set foot in the UK."

If I were William, I'd slap them with a cease and desist.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 10:03am

Can he sue? Wouldn’t he need some sort of copyright on her likeness and life story?

Updated On: 10/2/21 at 10:03 AM

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 10:11am

CATSNYrevival said: "Can he sue? Wouldn’t he need some sort of copyright on her likeness and life story?"

Yo, geniuses!  This musical has been around for years.  Started in LaJolla before Broadway.  If anyone could have legally stopped it, it would have been done years ago.  It’s not like this Netflix airing was the first time anyone has heard of it.  Geez.  

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 10:17am

There was a previous case involving merchandise and one article I found said “the court concluded the use of Diana’s persona had reached a degree of ubiquity that any connection between her persona and her estate as a source of goods was weak at best.”

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 10:45am

Now that I've finished it, I think the most insulting part was the Diana-Camilla confrontation. That meeting was apparently dignified and brief - of course, though, that's the account Diana gave. This show is clearly uninterested in proving any of the characters with any sort of depth, but what a missed opportunity, and how insane to see them circling each other in a boxing ring.

One of the reviews said that Judy Kaye as the queen looks like Dolores Umbridge. Brutal. I don't know if the show was at all salvageable in any of its iterations, but I don't really see why the queen needed to be in it at all - after all, we do without Philip and the (non-baby) versions of William and Harry. But I guess that was the biggest opportunity to get any degree of a "name" attached to this mess, and I get the impression that the creatives probably feel that "An Officer's Wife" is the best song in the show.

And the James Hewitt stuff. Saints preserve us.

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 11:11am

this is baaaaaaaad, really bad, how Netflix got conned into filming this I will never know

[Miles2Go2]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 11:19am

Metacritic Reviews

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 11:34am

My favorite tweet about the show:

"This is what someone who doesn't watch musicals thinks all musicals are like"

[HogansHero]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 12:15pm

Alex Kulak2 said: "My favorite tweet about the show:

"This is what someone who doesn't watch musicals thinks all musicals are like""

And therein lies the over-riding problem with these streaming undertakings. 

@Boring it's neither here nor there but Netflix did not film it, the production did, and I am pretty confident that the amount Netflix paid to stream it was not a number that would knock your socks off.

[Showhopper2]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 1:02pm

"@Boring it's neither here nor there but Netflix did not film it, the production did, and I am pretty confident that the amount Netflix paid to stream it was not a number that would knock your socks off."

Hmm... the production told several times that Netflix filmed it....  And if you watch closely  you can also find out by watching the film. 

 

Updated On: 10/2/21 at 01:02 PM

[Marlothom]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 1:29pm

I am a poor sap that flew to SD a few years ago to see what I heard was an Evita-like experience.  It was not.  Just watched it on Netflix to see if they made any changes since their La Jolla run, I didn't see anything major, though not much of the show/songs were memorable (aside from Pretty Pretty Girl, and F@ck me dress).  I did notice the changed the beginning of the show.  In La Jolla, it started with the Royal Wedding (using a different actress under the veil), and then Diana steps on stage and comments on the moment (something like "at that exact moment, I was thinking, 'what am I doing here?'".  I wish they had some more of that, because the story plainly told is so boring. This show needed some sort of device - the story told through the tapes she recorded for the book, or framed around her dresses.   I am also not sure if they had the palace in the background at La Jolla.  I believe it was just the gates and a black/dark background.  Good watch for free, but not Broadway caliber.  

[msmp]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 2:16pm

GlindatheGood22 said: "Now that I've finished it, I think the most insulting part was the Diana-Camilla confrontation. That meeting was apparently dignified and brief - of course, though, that's the account Diana gave. This show is clearly uninterested in proving any of the characters with any sort of depth, but what a missed opportunity, and how insane to see them circling each other in a boxing ring.

One of the reviews said that Judy Kaye as the queen looks like Dolores Umbridge. Brutal. I don't know if the show was at all salvageable in any of its iterations, but I don't really see why the queen needed to be in it at all - after all, we do without Philip and the (non-baby) versions of William and Harry. But I guess that was the biggest opportunity to get any degree of a "name" attached to this mess, and I get the impression that the creatives probably feel that "An Officer's Wife" is the best song in the show.

And the James Hewitt stuff. Saints preserve us."

At the stage door on the night of the first preview, Judy Kaye told us "An Officer's Wife" was the first song they came up with, to pilot whether or not they could even make the character of the Queen work.

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 2:42pm

Frank Marshall on Why Diana: The Musical’s on Netflix Before Broadway – The Hollywood Reporter

[RW3]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 2:57pm

I know Memphis is quite divisive but 'Underground' is clearly a better opening number than whatever 'Underestimated' is trying to be. Thank god Joe DiPietro's next musical is a jukebox because he needs to take a sabbatical from writing lyrics.

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 2:59pm

I started watching late last night so I stopped after Act 1. I'll finish it tonight. It's definitely in the "so bad it's almost good" category for me. I have to say that I was mildly entertained. The actress playing Diana has the weight of the show on her shoulders...

As of this hour, the Rotten Tomatoes score is 14% with most of the reviews coming from the UK. There is no audience score, which translates into nobody, for the most part, is even watching this.

[Luminaire2]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 3:22pm

Alexander Lamar said: "It’s humorous that you assume BIPOC haven’t been creating since….forever. "


Exactly. Comments like that are so frustrating. They are creating, they just don’t get in the room nearly as much as white creators or white stories do. 
 

I don’t disagree that Diana is an influential person, with a tragic story that captivated the world.
 

I think the point that person on Twitter was making is that there are many incredible stories and shows BIPOC creatures would LOVE to put on Broadway, and then you have producers and theatres putting up… dreck like this in spades, and not those stories.

[mlsheehan]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 3:38pm

@Marlothom

Thanks for confirming what I expected from the comments on this thread.  I saw this at La Jolla and pretty much hated it.  It’s just misguided mess of a show that really doesn’t seem to say anything that isn’t a cliche.  Additionally, the characters as presented in the show do not really have much of the personalities of the real people they are meant to represent.  
 

I have Netflix but I’m not even sure if I could stomach hate watching it again. 
 

I’m still not sure why the production team thought it was a good idea to bring this to Broadway - much less film it.  I guess some people have a lot of money to waste.  

[mlsheehan]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 3:38pm

Dupe post

Updated On: 10/2/21 at 03:38 PM

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 3:43pm

Not since Carrie…

[Alexander Lamar]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 3:49pm

Charley Kringas Inc said: "Not since Carrie…"

I spit out my water at this!!!! LOLOLOLOLOL

[HogansHero]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 4:07pm

Showhopper2 said: "Hmm... the production told several times that Netflix filmed it.... And if you watch closely you can also find out by watching the film.

Production Companies
The Kennedy/Marshall Company
Seeker Productions
Apache Digital
Grove Entertainment
The Araca Group


Distributors
Netflix (World-wide) (all media)
Netflix (2021) (World-wide) (video) (VOD)

[Kad]

Posted: 10/2/21 at 4:25pm

Well, it’s not often a Broadway musical that has yet to have its opening night will be starting its run with a poorly reviewed taping. Seems like they’ve shot themselves in the foot, badly.