Diana the Musical is streaming now. Photo / Netflix
Diana the Musical is streaming now. Photo / Netflix
REVIEW:
Much like other cultural touchstones of the 1990s, from scrunchies to Friends, an obsession with Princess Diana has reared its giddy head again in the 2020s.
The memory and legacy of the people's princess never went away, but you can't argue there isn't a resurgence in the interest in her dramatic story – and told through high-profile productions, not cheesy TV movies full of unknown actors.
There was the fourth season of The Crown, in which Emma Corrin played the young, naïve Diana of the 1980s, a role Australian actor Elizabeth Debicki will inherit for season five in 2022 as the story moves on to the acrimonious divorce.
Kristen Stewart's rendering of the tragic royal was the talk of the Venice Film Festival, apparently a dazzling and sad performance in Pablo Larrain's unconventional Spencer, which releases in Australia in January.
So, where to slot Diana The Musical? Is it the perfect canvas with its earnest song-and-dance numbers to tell a story which touched the most earnest of fans? Or is it a cynical symbol of how her image continues to be commodified, even 24 years after her death?
That's been the inherent contradiction of the Diana phenomenon – the relentless paparazzi and media interest that both sustained and doomed her. There is no Diana legacy without the press.
An early song in the musical production "Snap, Click" features a young Diana swarmed by photographers in trench coats, moving with menace as they stick cameras in her face and sing, "we're part of the deal".
That relationship between Diana and the press was symbiotic if uneven. As the musical depicts, the admiration from newspaper front pages and strangers on the ropeline became a source of validation as her marriage became increasingly cold and untenable.
Diana the Musical was filmed during the Broadway shutdown. Photo / Netflix/
Diana The Musical opened on Broadway in previews in the days before Covid reaped through the world. While it was shut down, the cast and crew reassembled in front of the cameras, and filmed a version for Netflix, which is available to stream now.
The stage production will reopen its doors in New York City imminently and fans of both musicals and the royals will surely be enchanted by Jeanna De Waal's sympathetic portrayal, an arc from a young woman who dreams of fantastical romance to the independent spirit who walks away from the Windsors.
De Waal certainly sparks, and the emotional, gushing and heart-on-your-sleeve songs and dance will satisfy traditional musical devotees. The staging is dynamic, and it makes great use of Diana's iconic fashion looks, the familiarity of her maternity gown or the revenge dress a strong visual connection to the story we already know.
But it is a story we already know, and Diana The Musical doesn't add anything new to a well-worn genre, nor it does it offer a different perspective or much nuance, it just does it with rhythm.
For long-time fans or royal obsessives, that's not going to be a problem, they probably don't want to be challenged – they are monarchists for a reason.
In that sense, Diana The Musical is as traditional as the institution she broke from. Yet another appropriation of her story, adding to the saintly oeuvre which allows her memory to live on with a halo effect.
