God Awful Movies - 538: Diana: The Musical

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

This week, we kick off Secular Movie Month with cohost of The Know Rogan Experience Michael Marshall joining us for the atrocity that is Diana: The Musical.To see us live in San Francisco, click her...e: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/god-awful-movies-live-in-san-francisco-california-tickets-1976632374642Check out more from Marsh on Skeptics with a K and the Know Rogan ExperienceIf you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/godawfulCheck out our other shows, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, Citation Needed, and D&D Minus.Our theme music is written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars. If you’d like to hear more, check out their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EvilGiraffesOnMars/Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/

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Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 It's so bad. Her big empowerment moment is wearing another dress. This isn't a feminist story that I think it is. And she's like just coming from going across the stage in a different dress. It's trying to as many dresses packed into this small thing as possible. And the overall effect, because she's wearing so many, like, layered costume to get in as many dresses at once, the overall effect is to make it look like Dana spent half her life in ill-fitting dresses. I did nothing to flatter her at all.
Starting point is 00:00:32 One out of four dresses will look face. God-awful movie. Movies. Welcome back to the GameCast, where each week we sample another selection from Christian cinema, except when he finally gets the secular movie month that he's been pining for since before the pandemic. I'm your host, No Illusions,
Starting point is 00:01:02 and Heath is off this week, but sitting 900 miles to my northeast is my bad friend, Eli Bosnick. Eli, how are you this fine afternoon, sir? But what a gift he has left behind. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You know how movies will do that thing where there's like a shitty parent? I'm not comparing Heath to a shitty parent.
Starting point is 00:01:23 Stay with me. And then at the end, it turns out they kept the snow globe all along. that's how I feel about Heath's 10-year fight for a secular movie month and this is the parting gift to you see what you could have had all along or we open up a box and it's got 40 years of the love letters he's been writing us
Starting point is 00:01:41 right there you go and of course we're excited to welcome in everybody's favorite substitute Heath co-host of the No Rogan Experience and Skeptics with the K-Michael Marshall Marsh welcome back oh thank you very much I know you can't hear it but during that introduction
Starting point is 00:01:56 I changed my outfit. Oh, good, that's important. And, yep, there's another one as well. So I'm going to be doing that throughout this recording, just constantly cycling through outfits. You might have seen me in a picture in at one point in my life. That's what's going to be happening here. A lot of bare shoulders on Marsh this episode, everybody.
Starting point is 00:02:13 If ever there was a point where you were missing out on a video version of this podcast, it's this week. I've got to show every one of my exes what they're missing. That's the whole thing of an outfit change, obviously. All right. Well, now that we've got everybody's curious, curiosity peaked. Tell us, Marsh, what will we be breaking down today? We watched Diana the musical. It is the West End musical about the life of Princess Diana,
Starting point is 00:02:39 as told by people who had only passing familiarity with the life of Princess Diana. Clearly. Oh, my God. Honestly, this is such a mess. I would say it is by far the biggest car crash associated with Diana Spencer. And Eli, how bad? How bad? was this movie. Well, if you love Princess Diana and you love musicals, you're
Starting point is 00:03:04 going to hate this movie because it's bad at both of those things. Do you remember in Galaxy Quest how the aliens had modeled their society after old episodes of their version of Star Trek? Yeah, yeah. That's what Princess Die the musical video. It feels like the aliens
Starting point is 00:03:21 got their hands on like a memorial copy of the Princess Diana, EPO magazine, like not a good one, right? And they just sort of took it from there. Yeah, or like one of those like memorial plates you get in the back of really cheap magazines. Yes, there's after Dione died.
Starting point is 00:03:36 And they were like, okay, that's it. Her Jubilee coin. Right, gets launched into space somehow. All right, so is there anything you guys want to nominate this one for being the best, at being the worst at? Yeah, I'm going to go straight in with best, worst, understanding of the British upper class system. This is in your notes an awful lot.
Starting point is 00:03:52 Oh, so much all the way through. They will emphasize that she was just an ordinary girl. elevated to the level of princess. She was just working in a kindergarten. She was barely educated. She was the daughter of an earl who was privately educated and went to a Swiss finishing school. Her marrying
Starting point is 00:04:08 Charles isn't like the plucked out of the crowd to marry a prince. It's more plucked out of the small room filled with people who might marry a prince in order to marry a prince. And that room also happens to be a family reunion. Oh, yeah. Well, no, that it is. Exactly. All right. So I'm going to go
Starting point is 00:04:24 with best, worst, echoy, silence. Okay, so what we're watching here, we're watching this play, like, before it debuts on Broadway, we're watching it being played to an empty house. Yeah. Probably because they recognized, right, that if they had an audience, they would still just have echoey fucking silence, so there might as well be a reason for it to be there. So over and over again, you hear that, like, these people, like, drop jokes and they pause
Starting point is 00:04:53 to no laughter, they end the big musical number. and nothing happens, and nothing should happen. It's a great punctuation to how awful this fucking show is. Yeah, no, it's amazing. I assumed that this was filmed, like, during the pandemic or something like that. I know it was released not long after the pandemic, kind of, or was kind of going on around about the start of the pandemic. Yeah, I think it was 2021 when they released it.
Starting point is 00:05:17 So, yeah, it would have been right then, you know. Given it was filmed during the pandemic, I assumed that the audience wasn't there for pandemic reasons, but it's just so much funnier if it was just, oh, no, we shouldn't have an audience in here because that will really shock how bad this is. No. Hey, guys, did you all ask your friends and family if they want to see the Broadway show for free? We did, yes, we did.
Starting point is 00:05:37 Did they all say no to? Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you what, we'll leave the doors wide open while we're shooting and just hope people selling copies of big issue and less than we'll wander in from the warmth. And I'm going to go with best, worst, understanding of the best. the queen. Now, if you are a regular listener to our program, you know that I am a hard core supporter of the monarchy. And I would never badmouth the monarchy except for right now. There is an image, largely created by Diana's death, that the queen was sort of this super controlling,
Starting point is 00:06:14 conniving genius who sort of was running the whole show behind the scenes. And this portrayal of her is so removed. This musical specifically is sort of so removed from the truth of that very lovely inbred pug of a person, that it is truly indecifference. She might as well do karate. And that's when she fought a bunch of ninjas. I mean, there is a point at which the actress playing her will come on as Barbara Cartland. And that Barbara Carlin is about as close to the real queen as the depiction of the queen is in this movie. Yeah. All right. Well, obviously, Marsh needs a minute to emotionally prepare himself for this journey.
Starting point is 00:06:58 So we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back in a minute with all the catterwalling that is Diana. The musical. People's princess. Dude, you're going to make yourself sick. Yeah, sick, nasty.
Starting point is 00:07:13 Hey, fellas, what are you doing? Eli,'s back on another fad health diet. It's not a fad, Noah. It's the way our ancestors ate. Our ancestors died of their teeth. Yeah, he's right. They did. Look, Eli, if you want to eat right in the new year, why don't you try Green Chef?
Starting point is 00:07:29 What's Green Chef? Green Chef cuts through the noise as the trusted authority in healthy eating, delivering only real farm-sourced ingredients. Well, that sounds great. It is. It trusts every bite with over 40 customizable weekly recipes designed to give you peace of mind. But is it good for de earth? It sure is. Green Chef cuts food waste by 20% versus grocery shopping and offsets 100% of delivery emissions.
Starting point is 00:07:55 But have you actually tried it? I have. Green Chef sent us a box to try when they became a sponsor. I love the delicious meals they sent packed with fresh veggies. That's why I know illusions personally endorse Green Chef. Right now, go to greenchef.com slash awful graza and use the code Awful Graza to get started with 50% off Green Chef and free Graza olive oil set in your second and third boxes.
Starting point is 00:08:20 Ah, that's where it's from. That's where the Graza's from. This 50% offer is only available for limited time, so don't wait, that's code awful graza at greenchev.com slash awful graza. All right, Marsh, thanks. Hope my ancestors liked Greenshift. Your ancestors would have worshipped a refrigerator as a god.
Starting point is 00:08:39 Nope, that's fair. That's fair. All right, all right, I call to order this meeting of British homosexuals and Oda-Aunts, who for some reason think Princess Dye's story is about them. You may be seated. The people's princess. Yes, quite. Now, I have absolutely scrumptuous news. We have been commissioned to write Diana the musical. A musical, but we've never written one of those before. I mean, how hard could
Starting point is 00:09:07 it be? I'm singing a song, won't you sing along? Oh, that was right, good. Oh, that's what all musicals sound like to mean. At last, we will tell the heartbreaking tale of a girl who rose from nothing. Well, I mean, she was the daughter of an earl. Nothing but being the daughter of an ear, almost. To queen. I'm sort of. She was in the line to be queen if the right number of people died. Look, the point is, we should use this show to tell her story and talk about her greatest contribution.
Starting point is 00:09:43 Her charity work. The stuff she did about AIDS. No. Wearing clothes from the decade she was alive during. That was the most important So brave Sorry, is this the meaning for people who think Charlie Kirk is a hero Because he got shot in the neck while saying something racist
Starting point is 00:10:01 No, that's down the hole We should get a sign Should And we're back for the breakdown And we're going to open up on Diana in Silhouette Always proud of myself when I spell silhouette Right on the first try And the thing that is going to be hard to explain to you
Starting point is 00:10:21 about how good, bad this is, is that almost everybody in this show can really sing. Yep. Oh, yeah. Right? No one in this show is executing poorly. They've just been given a map to the hole at the bottom of the sea. Okay, so first of all, every rhyme in this goddamn show is fifth graderly in its stupidity, right?
Starting point is 00:10:46 Yes. Everything ends with 8 or OST or E or something like that. And almost all of them are single syllables as well. There are no complex rhyme structures here at all. Yeah, it's infuriating. Also, you say that we open up with a silhouette of Diana. When the lights come up, are we sure it's Diana? Because I thought for a while it was Hillary Clinton.
Starting point is 00:11:06 She looks exactly like Hillary Clinton here. All right, so, Marsh, I saw that in your nose. And then as I was reading through the notes before we recorded, I saw that at one point I had unironically written, The Lady playing Hillary Clinton says whatever. All right. So, but we open on Diana. She stepped out of a party and now somebody comes to fetch her.
Starting point is 00:11:26 Now, it's not just anybody. It's Prince Charles's sidepiece Camilla Parker Bowles, right? Yes. She's come to fetch Diana because the prince would like to flirt with her. Yes, that is it. And Diana is being like as naive as possible here. Like the way they portray her, this is the first time we get the sense that they have no idea who Diana actually was before she met Charles. Because she's saying, oh, you know, it's such a posh part.
Starting point is 00:11:51 I'm used to talking to five-year-olds. It's like, your dad was a fucking earl. You were already nobility. You've been to some posh parties. She's 19. She got engaged to Charles at 19. Oh, wow. She left her private school at 16 and was in a Swiss finishing school for a little while in
Starting point is 00:12:09 between. So it's not been that long since she's been in a very, very posh room. It really hasn't. Even the fucking five-year-olds were probably all nobility anyway. Right. Yes. And it's not like the Swiss finishing school was just bust. with lawyers and doctors.
Starting point is 00:12:23 That is a one day you might end up the queen school. Right. Yes. Also, we have to point this out. The songs in this goddamn show are so forgettable that not only are none of them stuck in my head after watching it yesterday, but I cannot recall a single tune from it.
Starting point is 00:12:40 This movie doesn't have earworms. It has ear like birds, right? It's the closest I can come to the opposite of a worm. I should know the opposite of a fucking worm. That's my whole thing. There is no department of Diane. of the musical. Yes.
Starting point is 00:12:52 Yeah, and it's genuinely tricky because I actually watched this more than a week ago. I think I watched it before Christmas even as a recording. And I was thinking, oh, it's fine. I'll remember all of what my notes were referring to as we go through.
Starting point is 00:13:05 I think because it's so forgettable, I'm going to really struggle to know which song this is about. I'm lucky that I've written the note she is smugly singing about how underestimated she is. That reminds me this of the song, underestimated, and I've written that
Starting point is 00:13:17 this is happening in a movie that wildly overestimated itself and its appeal. Right. So it's also like a weirdly triumphal song for the first song of your musical. Right? It sounds like you're closing the first act here.
Starting point is 00:13:32 We're just introducing shit. Yeah. And the spirit of the song is like, I'm such a normal person, which we've already talked about. I'm such a humble nobody. But, you know, I'll give marrying the crown prince of England to try.
Starting point is 00:13:46 Yeah, sure. The way that we are supposed to believe that Diana approached marrying the future king of England it was like, I mean, the med school exam seemed tough. So I think, yeah, you know what? It's one hand to the other. But again, it probably was that
Starting point is 00:14:00 because she was bred to be in that world. This was like if she went to the careers advisor at her incredibly posh private school, marrying the future king was probably one of the options she would presently. Like, you've not got the math to do more than that, but have you thought about marrying the king? Well, also like, the way that she...
Starting point is 00:14:18 Social work. Well, the way that she describes it in song is, quote, why not have a go at marrying the king? All right, I'll be the queen of England, I will. That's not the queen mum. You would have been eventually. No, she gets it eventually. She stabs her and then she takes her powers.
Starting point is 00:14:40 What do you think the queen mum is? I see, you lost me and think. I don't. I heard those words once, and now that. they are in my mouth. Do you think he's just like, when the queen is a mum, she's the queen. I think that's what I think that's what I think.
Starting point is 00:14:55 He's talking about the maternal aspects of the queen. He just says the queen mother. The mumminess, if you will. So, okay. So, but then the queen, just, the queen shows up. And she's there to complain that her playboy son hasn't settled down yet, right? He needs to up his PR game. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:12 And the line in there is, it was fine when you were new, but God, you're 32. Oh, fuck me. We're in for a long old. ride here. We're in for a long old ride. Speaking of the Queen Mum, this is when I wrote for the first and not the last time in my notes. Don't you portray the Queen Mother like this, you ungrateful.
Starting point is 00:15:29 I even wrote on my notes, on the notes, not the Queen Mother. I wrote that next to that. Okay. That did not dissuade me from writing. The Queen Mother, just to be absolutely clear, does not appear in this entire thing. The Queen Mother is not in this. She might as well not exist for the purposes of the next hour and a half, but
Starting point is 00:15:44 you will carry on. That's the spider underneath the castle. The other thing is the queen says that there's a trust issue with the public, and that's why Charles needs to get married. And I think the trust issue might be more Andrew's fault than Charles's. And then I wrote, oh man, where's Andrews musical? Can we not have that instead? Yeah. So, okay, now the whole thing that they start a fucking song here, because of course they do. And the whole bit of the song is that the queen is going to sing the upside of Diana, you know, marrying her son. And then like the chorus behind them is going to sing the downside.
Starting point is 00:16:20 Like, that's the construction of the song. They will call being princess the worst job in England multiple times throughout the song. Yes. And, like, look, I've never been a princess, but I assume there were child sex slaves during this period of history.
Starting point is 00:16:37 I mean, yeah, Andrews. Yeah, exactly, right. In the same castle, there were worse jobs. Jesus. That's who was singing that the princess is the worst job. Like, all the sex slaves were the, the chorus in the background. Right, right, yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:50 I don't fancy yours much, love. That's what that's basically your line from. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't want to fuck Prince Charles. I get it. I get it. But yeah. And speaking of the chorus, because they're doing the, as you say, the downside to it, they're doing the sort of the dancing thing.
Starting point is 00:17:04 At one point, they all, the entire backline chorus start thrusting their crotch at our queen. And that's the closest I've ever got to being offended on behalf of my monarchy. That and when I use the queen. mother wrong. Those are the two lines that March has left. I mean, I really want the queen to turn around to them and say, could you stop saying bad things about Marina? Yeah, right. Exactly. I have a fucking point here.
Starting point is 00:17:28 My son is, God damn it. So, okay, so then we cut to Diana chatting with her sister about whether or not she should, you know, date the prince and marry him or whatever. And the very small moment here, this is the first time we see what would become a running theme throughout this entire musical.
Starting point is 00:17:44 Diana is wearing, first of all, an incredible jumper. It's like this red jumper. It's like, with like white kind of sheep on it. That is a genuine jumper that she wore. There's an entire BBC article about her in that jumper. And that's because they will try very, the only thing they'll get accurate throughout this entire thing is the clothes that Diana wore,
Starting point is 00:18:01 and they really want you to know that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's very obvious that whoever wrote this libretto slash musical slash whatever the fuck it is was really a visual learner, if you know what I'm saying. There's a lot of attention to outfits, not so much on the rhymes.
Starting point is 00:18:17 Yeah. So they also imply at this point that Princess Diana grew up with like foldouts of Prince Charles taped to her walls a la like, you know, the teen magazines or something. Teen Beat had British Teen Beat had. Please tell me Charles was in the center of Tiger Beat in Britain. You know, I didn't look that up. I assume not, but it was a weird time. It would have been like the late 70s. It's a weird time.
Starting point is 00:18:43 I don't know. I wasn't around for that bit. Sure. Andrew's copy was the only one that had 15-year-old Charles. Okay, but this is again where they sort of go against their own narrative, right? Because Diana is supposed to be this simple kindergarten teacher
Starting point is 00:18:57 plucked from obscurity and then married to the prince, except in this scene they admit that he dated her older sister first. Yes. Was she just also plucked? What kind of random job was she supposed to have? Yeah, a masseuse. She worked for Jeffrey Epstein. It's just, it was in the family.
Starting point is 00:19:15 It was in the fact. Well, there's also a point here where her sister says to her, she goes, and you're still a virgin. And I'm like, hey, the play, what the fuck? Were you just complaining how people were going to sexually objectify her in the last fucking song? And the thing is, Jesus, that was real. The press did do that. They did talk about whether Diana was a virgin, because that at the time wasn't in,
Starting point is 00:19:38 was still anachronistic country that we are. That was still a big part of the conversation. That was a part of the conversation up until Kate Middleton married Prince William, and then the palace kind of obfuscated around that. So, yeah, this play is going, oh, and you're a virgin, but it might as well, they might all, every actor turn to the audience that isn't there and go, wink, wink, wink, you know, D.S. It's a virgin. A wink. Yeah. So then Prince Chuck Yee sends her a really nice necklace, and then he calls her to ask her about the necklace. The second the box gets opened,
Starting point is 00:20:11 like he put a GPS tracker inside of it. Yeah. Right, yeah. So, but he, he wants to to make a date, he wants to take her to listen to a cellist play Bach, right? She accepts and then he gets off the phone and he's talking to Camilla. Right? Camilla was like there with him. I guess she's like advising
Starting point is 00:20:29 him the whole time on how to date Diana. Well, and they're fucking, right? This is part of what we're supposed to see. And honestly, I find it hard to either dislike or blame his relationship with Camilla through any of this movie and any of his actual life. He wanted to just be with Camilla.
Starting point is 00:20:45 and it was bullshit that he wasn't. Like, there was an entire bullshit thing around him not being allowed to marry someone who was divorced. Right, like she was divorced or something before. Yeah, right. Yeah. And all of the bad things happened because of that stupid rule, first and foremost. And like, just let the guy have the lady.
Starting point is 00:21:00 It's fine. Don't worry about him. Yeah. I find it she's going to be the bad guy here, and I find it hard to see her as a bad guy. Right. Yeah. But so Camilla and Charles are now talking about Diana
Starting point is 00:21:09 and they're like making fun of what a simpleton. She wanted to go see some pop band instead of a sophisticated cell. playing Bach. Yeah. He also invites Camilla to join him on their date. So woof. All right, so now we're going to get the...
Starting point is 00:21:25 This was the first scene where I was like, you guys knew you were making shit. You had to know you were making shit when you did this scene, right? Because this is the scene where they're going to watch this cellist play Bach, but she's going to spend the whole time wishing they were at a rock concert. And so they, like, flip back and forth between rocking out and listening to Bach. Yes. And so this is a problem for a lot of reasons.
Starting point is 00:21:47 First of all, being they're making it seem like she wouldn't know anything about classical music despite being the privately educated member of British ability whose dad wasn't Earl. She'd be very familiar with Bach. Yeah, I think she'd heard a cello before. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we'll find out she can sort of play the cello.
Starting point is 00:22:02 I mean, probably not. But then it has the lines in this song. Oh, God, this is, I think, where we get a hint of how bad the lyricism of this is going to be. One line I wrote down, the Russian, because it's a Russian guy playing the cello, the Russian plays on and on like an endless telethon
Starting point is 00:22:18 how I wish that he were Elton John and that really had to go all the way around not just around the houses, around the palace for that rhyme telephone. In what way is this like a telethon prince and there's, I don't want to watch. I say this with an open heart because she spends so much of this song
Starting point is 00:22:38 describing how she's too stupid for fancy music you got to stop letting gay men write for women Okay, I get it, straight people. We're like, I don't know any women and I don't want to let them write any of their own musicals. What's the closest to a woman I know? My gay writer friend. I'll get him to do it.
Starting point is 00:22:55 But they are, in fact, different. Cis gay men and women are actually different species. Species, huh? Yeah, different species. So, yeah, so they're both the queen mother. They do all of this. You got to follow my chart. So, yeah, but so they do this whole big, long,
Starting point is 00:23:14 rock-bock thing. I don't even think they ever fucking rhyme rock and Bach. They're so fucking stupid. Jesus, I don't think they do. Oh, my God. They do rhyme rocker with Charles saying he'd like to sock her. Yes, right.
Starting point is 00:23:26 Right. When she says it, when she says, oh, I'd really like to sock her, you're like, oh, God, what are you trying to set up here? You're fucking idiots. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's down it to Camilla. Sorry, yeah, you're right. And then it's just fucking rocker. Yeah. Yep.
Starting point is 00:23:39 But yeah, so everybody walks off. Camilla sings a little bit about how she fucking hates Diana. is jealous of her. And then we get our paparazzi chorus for the first time, right? Oh, yeah, the Dick Tracy's. Yes, exactly. And at one point, one of them went, hey, guys, we can twirl our trench coats in
Starting point is 00:23:57 they're like, fuck, that is literally all the choreography we need, right? Oh, they love these little boy twink dancers. They have a love twirled trench coat in this film. Yeah, they really do. I'm surprised neither of you have picked up too much on the line that paparazzi say about taking pictures of Diana, better than a Guinness, better than a wank, snatch a few pitches and it's money in the bank. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:24:21 I did write down better than a wamp. Nobody involved this musical can ever have talked to an actual British person to think that is a normal thing to have, for anyone to say. Better than a wank. Okay. Yeah. I mean, she's changed outfit again in this as well. And she is just powering through the outfit changes. I can only assume that she starts off the start of this play in about eight layers of
Starting point is 00:24:41 clothing and just keeps peeling them off like an onion because I can't think of any other way to be done. And to be fair, that would have mirrored the weight loss she experienced you to believe you. So maybe it was method. It's a twofer. It's perfect. Oh, there you go. So yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:54 Also, during the song, one of the paparazzi says to another, I hear she's still a virgin. But again, the newspapers were actually writing that as headlines. So like, because I thought, God, that's fucking weird. And I looked at up and I was like, oh, yeah, we're weird. What a weird country we are. So, yeah. All right. So, and then at the very end, they all, all of the paparazzi assemble at the end as though to say, yes, this was choreographed. Otherwise, how would we all not hit each other just now?
Starting point is 00:25:22 This was the first time that I realized there wasn't an audience there because they do this extremely long pause at the end of the dance number for what they are sure is going to be the two standing ovations of the following night. Yeah. I mean, it could have been that the entire audience was still Dunstruck trying to work out better than a Guinness better than a wank? That's what you went with? Just like, yeah, for being. All right. But so now the Queen thinks Chuck should
Starting point is 00:25:48 fucking put a ring on it already, right? Because she wouldn't want Diana to be mistreated in the press. Yeah, because the Queen was very famously, very sympathetic to how Diana was treated at any given point. That was a very famous part of their collective story. She loved
Starting point is 00:26:04 Diana. Really wanted things to go well for old Diana. And then they have this stupid conversation where Charles, like, were you certain when you were married? And I wrote in my notes, well, you know, my uncle was trying to solidify his power by joining up with Hitler. So I was pretty sure.
Starting point is 00:26:20 But it's not just that like, yeah, she was certain, the queen was certain when she married Prince Philip. But that's because she'd known him a while. He was her cousin and they met in a family wedding. Jesus Christ. So yes. Well, and Charles, though, is like, well, okay, but theoretically, what if I wanted to live as a tampon
Starting point is 00:26:37 in somebody else? Okay. So, but then they have this fucking half-ass song where, like, I shit you know, this is one of the lines, okay? This is where I just basically had to, like, tell my wife to hide the rope. She says, he got down on one knee, he did it properly, and that was enough for me. It's almost like the queen is kind of taunting you to answer her riddles so that you can get her possible. Yes, exactly. So that you could become the queen.
Starting point is 00:27:08 Exactly. Like I wrote in my notes at this point, the tunes are so forgettable that you forgettable while you're listening to him. Right? Like the second verse, you're like, fuck, was that the two?
Starting point is 00:27:23 So, okay. So now Diana shows up, and this is where she starts telling her backstory about how her mom ran off and that's why she loves Barbara Cartland romances. Okay. I cannot emphasize to our audience enough how central a figure in Diana the musical
Starting point is 00:27:42 Romance author Barbara Cartland is. Yes. And for those of you who aren't British, it's like chicken soup for the soul, but lady porn, you have to imagine that there was an entire musical about a modern American historical figure and the only literary reference
Starting point is 00:28:02 made in the entire thing were Dave Barry columns in the newspaper. That's how weird it is. is to constantly use Barbara Carlin as a literary device in this show. It's like in Hamilton, the writer of Twilight had her own song in the middle of Hamilton. Yeah, it's amazing. And so I don't know whether Diana was a massive fan of Barbara Carlin's books. I looked it up because, as you say, Barbara Carlin appears in this scene.
Starting point is 00:28:29 Yeah, she just shows up. The actor, the actor playing the queen, put on a big pink dress and comes on as Barbara Cartland. I was like, why is Barbara Cartland gate crashing this? And I looked up, it's because Barbara Cartland was her step-grandma. So there's a real thing that the writer was, like, married into Princess Dana's family on a dad's side. So that that is real, which then just makes it weird that Diana only ever refers to her as Barbara Cartland and not like step-bramma.
Starting point is 00:28:56 Yeah, yeah, right, right, yeah. So, yeah, but so we have this scene where she shows up and Diana asks her about romance and she says that Romance is bullshit. And then speaking of which, then we get Chuck's proposal, right? Which is very afterthoughtly. By the way, just for those of you who haven't gone down a Barbara Cartland rabbit hole, again, this is like such insider humor for fucking British great-grandmas. But they all had this baby blue cover with identical fucking artist plates from like
Starting point is 00:29:30 fucking little women, the musical on them. and every title feels like something you would make up in a comedy about romance novels, right? The bored bridegroom, the impetuous Duchess, the magic of Paris. Those are all real Barber Carlin books.
Starting point is 00:29:47 Yes, oh, 100%. I was about to make a reference that, it's like Jilly Cooper, but worse, but I thought, I don't think Jilly Cooper is a reference. Nope, they don't know, no, American audiences either. But, yeah, anyway. The four Brits and me loved that, though.
Starting point is 00:29:58 Just know, the four, if Dr. Alice is listening to this one, you fucking out of the park. So, okay. So Chuck proposes. She's like, do you love me? And he's like, yeah, whatever. And then we cut to, like, him telling Camilla that he's proposed to Diana, but he would dump her for Camilla in a second. I'm like, that's a pre-proposal discussion rather than post. So, okay. So now we've got the press comes in again and they're hounding her about the engagement now. Yep, they say the line, she was common, she was dim. And again, no, she fucking wasn't. Dad. Earl, not common. And also, this is the first of many times
Starting point is 00:30:37 where they call her stupid, right? Like, she was coming. So many times. And also, I have to point out the rhyme there is she was far from worthy of him. And this is where we meet like her guy, Paul. I don't know who this is. Okay, so this is Paul Burrell.
Starting point is 00:30:56 Okay, Paul Burrell was her assigned butler and would be her butler throughout her time at the palace. I think he even went with her when she got divorced. awesome Charles and was around her and stuff. So, like, he will be a central figure as he's like, as her savior, her rock. But he betrayed her quite badly. He was, like, leaking a lot of information to the press. And I think also stole quite a lot of her dresses after she died.
Starting point is 00:31:17 So he's, oh, wow. This is very much Paul Burrell as told by Paul Burrell is what we're seeing on screen here. So, okay, so, yeah, so we meet him. He'll be importantish later. We get Chuck and Camillas singing at each other a bit. And then everybody la-la-la-la's into the wedding. Yes. And very minor nod, but Camilla enters to the wedding here,
Starting point is 00:31:39 while Dretters, I can only describe as Liz Truss the Naval Aircraft Carrier. That's what she looks at. And so, okay, so they're going to do this, a couple of times in this show, they're going to do magic tricks just to piss Eli off, just to really dig in. Fuck, yeah, they will. And this is the bit where fucking David Copperfield sword fights himself, right? Yes. It takes the mask off at the end, and it turns out it was him the whole time.
Starting point is 00:32:03 and so they have like Charles and this bride walk out and it's obviously I mean I don't want to give away how this trick is done but like like the suit is so wide right it's like so wide there are at least three Diana's worth of space in that wedding dress and she isn't even one of those three Diana's sure is it right yeah because we see her instead like pre-wedding getting cold feet with her sister right we have a quick scene there yes she looks at her dress she goes well
Starting point is 00:32:33 it'll make me look fat. And I'm like, well, only because you have to climb in it after it's already. Only because it's a wire frame meant to fool absolutely nobody with object permanent. I know because it was designed to hide the toilet roll in your nun's house. Let's visit his thing. There's a toilet roll in that. All right. But yeah, and also, by the way, whoever the fuck tried to rhyme I can with demand didn't consider
Starting point is 00:33:02 that it was going to be sung in a British accent. Yeah. We get some really quality rhymes in this one. Represent the crown. No time now to back down. Yeah. It is beautiful. There's also a line in it where they say,
Starting point is 00:33:18 well, how did she get this far? It's like, yeah, she got here all the way from her 900-year-old 13,000-acre stately home to marrying someone who was already within her social circle. Right. Yes. And family bloodlines. Yeah, exactly. Right, right.
Starting point is 00:33:34 But at the end of this scene here, there's something very controversial that happens that I need to know if this is true. She says, when they get to the end of the marriage ceremony, she says, I will instead of I do? Do the Brits say I will instead of I do during weddings? We don't, but she did. Because I had to look that up as well, because I was like, really?
Starting point is 00:33:52 But yeah, that Princess Jenna, her wedding vows were I will. And I think he did the same. And I think she also fucked up his name. Which I don't know if that means she got the order of his names wrong. when you had to because I take, because he's obviously his name's fucking mad because he's an inbred book of a human being as Eli. He's got like 18 different names,
Starting point is 00:34:10 and she gets the order wrong. Sure. But I don't know if that means they weren't legally married, like the time that Obama had to retake the author of office because he hooked a little bit of it up. Yeah, exactly. The next day. So maybe they were never married in the first place.
Starting point is 00:34:20 Oh, interesting. But no, she said, I will rather than I do. All right, well, as indelicate as this is to say about a Princess Diana musical, I fear that this play is moving too fast and erratically. So we're going to take a minute to fasten our seatbelts, but we'll be back in a minute with even more of Diana, the musical. It's fine.
Starting point is 00:34:40 The director was drunk, to be honest, but I might find had dosed up his drink. It's weird that the cameras were off for this part, though. That's why there was no audience there. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Oh, and people are going to start living up to my expectations of them. That is a huge one. Right. Hey, guys. What's with the list? Oh, hey, Noah. I'm just having Marsh read my New Year's resolutions.
Starting point is 00:35:09 Oh, how's that going? Yeah, so he's got a lot of resolutions for other people. I do, I do. Like, Marsh is going to be more appreciative of the websites I build for him. I'm sorry, your resolutions are for other people. Yeah, that's what's always making me angry. Right. You know, Eli, it might be a bit better for you to focus on your own thoughts and your own behaviors. How can I do that, Marsh? A thought-a-matic?
Starting point is 00:35:33 Because if that's real, I haven't seen it. Now, Eli, you can do that with therapy. Therapy? I thought therapy was just for people who go... Not at all. Therapy can help you with perspective, to work through personal issues, or to just lend an ear
Starting point is 00:35:48 if you need someone to listen to. And if you're considering therapy, you should think about online therapy with BetterHelp. What's BetterHelp? BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, and their 12-plus years of experience and industry-leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time.
Starting point is 00:36:10 But if you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. So no awkward therapy breakups? No awkward therapy breakups. You can't step into a lighter version of yourself without leaving behind what's been weighing you down. Therapy can help you clear space. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash awful. That's better H-E-L-P.com slash awful. All right, Noah, thanks.
Starting point is 00:36:34 All right, you guys ready? I don't want to miss any more football. Oh, you're going to care about football way less this year. Yeah, again, not doing other people. Right, sorry. Sorry. Fucking playoffs, by trash.
Starting point is 00:36:50 Hey, Chris, do you have a second? Why, of course, gentlemen. How go rehearsals. Right, so about that. I know you've written the musical as a tribute to Diana. The People's Princess. Right, right.
Starting point is 00:37:05 So we were just... You'll just say it, say it. I'm sorry, say what? Say the People's Princess. I said the People's Princess. Oh, the People's Princess. Anyway, we were actually worried that the show might make her look bad. Oh, bad?
Starting point is 00:37:19 How? Well, you do call her stupid quite a bit. What? I would never. This foolish girl, this unsublished girl, this unsubes. schooled girl, simple, dim. Yeah, stupid. Like, literally the word stupid. Oh, no, you fools, don't you see?
Starting point is 00:37:37 That's all a setup for when she shows them all at the end. Yet, by describing her sex life on the phone? Yes. Okay, I mean, if you say so. The people's princess. The people's princess. Yeah. And we're back for more of this shit.
Starting point is 00:37:59 We're going to rejoin the action with Camilla and her husband, who we haven't met yet. He's going to sing a love song to her now, damn it. He has not earned a refrain to any of these songs. No, like just stay out of this. You're not needed to hear. You're not in the sketch. Okay. I love Camilla's husband, one, in real life and also in this musical so much.
Starting point is 00:38:19 Because that dude, everyone was like, huh? Your wife? Fucking another guy. And he's like, yeah, no, I get to like go to royal shit. It's fucking awesome. Yeah. You can run her through with a. rocking horse if he wants to. Do you know how awesome it is to be this rich? You guys know I have to go to a
Starting point is 00:38:35 palace now, right? I go to a palace. Someone's fucking your wife and all you get to do is kill them both while they're asleep. This is fine. I don't care a little. So, okay, and then they have this scene, and I love this scene so fucking much, right? Because this is the song about how Diana's all nervous. She has to make her first official appearance and she's so nervous. It's going to be so hard, but, like, her job is just a smile in kind of way. Like, sort of exist in space is the job there.
Starting point is 00:39:03 So, like, even the song can't pretend that's hard. Yeah, it's not even like the rule is just don't say anything racist, because Prince Philip short, that's not a rule. You can say what you like. It's absolutely fine. Charles, too. Everyone in that family at some point has been like, so
Starting point is 00:39:19 are you dirty or brown? I don't get it. What's fucking going on? The whole song is like, she hasn't received the training to say hi? Yes. Right, exactly. Maybe she hasn't received the training to talk to an average person because they weren't any of those at her Swiss finishing school.
Starting point is 00:39:37 Oh, there you go. So yeah, but she has to stand and bask in all the free money built from the nations. It's going to be really difficult. So now we're in Wales. And we know that because it's got the word Wales written in big block apples like it does whenever you're in Wales. If you're in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, it just says Wales. across the sky at all times.
Starting point is 00:39:57 Well, you'd never guess it from the fucking accents, so they had to do something. There's a weird... There's a weird Wales racism to this scene, right? Because the whole point of this scene is she didn't just walk by, she shook the hands of the Welsh. The Welsh, I tell you.
Starting point is 00:40:14 Have you ever met a Welshman? She's willing to touch an AIDS patient and a Welshman. Never threw up. Not even a hit. Didn't have gloves on or anything. This would have been the early 80s as well. So those Welsh people, they would have still had coal dust on their hand because Thatcher hadn't closed the minds yet.
Starting point is 00:40:30 So there was still coal in them there. Look them right in their far apart eyes. No problem. Yeah. So she gets there's a really tough crowd because, you know, the Brits in the 1980s sure hated the royal family and everything. I mean, the Welsh might, I'm not sure. The Welsh are pretty socialist.
Starting point is 00:40:46 I reckon the Welsh, if there was enough of them to work a guillotine towards London, I think they would have operated it. And I'd have been well on their side as well, to be honest. Yeah. Okay, so, but then, but they in... But can you buy a Keatine on credit? I was too busy laughing at my own joke.
Starting point is 00:41:04 I'm sorry. So, okay, I'm not laughing at that because I can see whales from my house and I know self-preservation. So, but then, like, the song itself undercuts this whole idea of like, oh, you know, they're going to be really hard to please because she doesn't do anything, right?
Starting point is 00:41:18 She just shakes their hand and they're like, wow, she touched me. The song literally says, will you please take my hand I am now your biggest fan yes and also take this rose take this bouquet Diana make my day how their Welsh accents go
Starting point is 00:41:35 oh it's so bad that's all it takes and then all of Wales fell in love right there and then yes not so much with Charles though and I'm like it's probably the ears I was comforted though because I have gotten slack from our British listeners for how my British accent is
Starting point is 00:41:50 but the moment these West End actors were asked to do Welsh. They all sound like fucking Little Britain's cuts from the cutting room from the more problematic parts of Little Britain and Mighty Bush.
Starting point is 00:42:04 So, okay. So, but the point here, though, is that Charles gets really jealous of how well received Diana is. So we get a scene where Camilla is trying to console him about that. Yeah, and again, like, and they talk about what's kind of
Starting point is 00:42:17 going on with her husband and stuff. Camilla and a husband, they come across to the own, like, exclusively as people who are pretty comfortable. with who they are and what's going on their lives. This musical may as well be a Camilla propaganda piece. Honestly, yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:29 Because I don't think she was queen at the time that this, she wasn't allowed to be queen at the time that this came out. And I think we changed the rules on that since. So I think this might have been part of her PR push to be allowed to become queen by renovating her reputation here. Oh, there you go. But at this point, she tells Chucky that she needs to break it off with him because it's ruin and stuff with her husband, right?
Starting point is 00:42:50 Yeah. And so right on the heels of that, Diana comes in all bubbly and in high contrast with Chuck's sudden sadness. So he gets all snippy, right? And, of course, this actress plays Diana is like perpetually on the edge of a breakdown. So as soon as he's like, you know, hey, I'm upset right now, not in the mood for your good news. She completely loses it, right? Yes.
Starting point is 00:43:11 And tells us about how it's really hard to do no work and be a publicly funded billionaire. I mean, genuinely, like, I'm sure she had a very hard life at this point. I know she tried to kill herself several times and had Bolinian. I'm sure it was like really actually very difficult for her at this point, but it's still kind of fucking hilarious to watch this person go like, it's so hard to have so many billions of dollars
Starting point is 00:43:33 to worry about. Yeah. I mean, like she had the hardest job in England and that is because at the time the country is going through a mass unemployment crisis that was leaving people destitute. So a lot of people didn't have jobs, but yeah, you have it hard. A lot of those Welsh people were free all day.
Starting point is 00:43:48 That's why they were there with the flowers. They were going to eat those flowers after she left. This is where he says, I love you, I think we're supposed to think for the first time, right? And he says it, like, when you realize that this is your favorite tie place in town, like, you know what? I love you. Yeah, right, right.
Starting point is 00:44:05 I love you, in a way. Yeah. And she says she's pregnant as well. I've got to me tell you, it's a baby, Charles, and he says, what? It's like, she can't say it much more clearly than that. I mean, she's holding a stomach and saying, I've got to me to tell you, it's a baby Charles. You can put the pieces together here.
Starting point is 00:44:21 Right. So, but he sure hopes it's a boy. It is. Then we get her singing to baby William. At this point, she's got to, like, sing extra syllables so that the rhymes catch up with each other, you know. Again, we get some hard gains in again here. Yeah, they struggle so hard to think of rhymes. It's too much to the point where at least are really odd situations. Like at one point during this song, she wonders if she dare call her baby her own. But like, it's obviously your baby. It might have been, like, it's obviously your baby. It might have been, like, it's. could have, there's questions of a parentage, but normally on the dad's side, not on the mum's side. And we rhyme like, air is in heir to the throne with their, and we rhymed B with family.
Starting point is 00:45:03 And it's like, oh God, it's every single one of them is such a dull rhyme. And I think, I think we haven't expressed sufficiently is there's almost no spoken words in this entire two hour long thing. Oh no, yeah, it's almost an opera. Yeah, it's every, every thing,
Starting point is 00:45:17 crashing into song, crashing into song. Yeah. Yeah. In all the words. worst ways, yeah. But Charles is impressed with the kid's possession of a penis, and then he gets a call from Camilla. And, you know, he sings about how he loves Camilla more than Diana, and Diana overhears it. Right. So she says, hey, did you just say something about being her tampon? And he goes, no, I said, I felt tramped on. Trampton. But then he leaves, and she sings a
Starting point is 00:45:46 song about how he totally said tampon. I could use a prince to save him. me from my prince is one of the lyrics in that song. Yeah, it's bad. It is so bad. We get the famous wall punch. Again, so for those of you who didn't follow fucking British tabloids when I was 10 years old and Noah
Starting point is 00:46:05 was getting married to Lucinda, this was a huge, this got leaked from the palace that she punched a window and it broke and she cut her hand. Oh, gotcha. I didn't know that. This is a huge, oh yeah, because they turned it into like she's a homicidal maniac,
Starting point is 00:46:21 who pulled two panes of glass free from the royal windows and held someone at, you know, a fucking glass to their throat and was like, bring me the blood of a Welshman. But what actually happened is she like slammed something too hard and it cracked or whatever. But this is, it's such a perfect representation of this musical taking like a weird tabloid detail that only four people were obsessed with
Starting point is 00:46:44 and turning it into the throat slitting scene from Sweeney Taw. Yeah. Like, she just turns to a bathroom cabinet and just like a Diana smash. Like, yeah, she might as well, like, Diana smash, Coo! Oh! So, okay.
Starting point is 00:46:59 So now she's, she's on bed rest after a suicide attempt, right? They've only got one wrist wrap. Like, she gave up halfway through. And then she conversed, she's talking with her sister at this point. And her sister's like, I think you're only trying to kill yourself for attention. I'm like, oh, don't just say it like that, man.
Starting point is 00:47:18 Fuck. the musical hedges its bets way too much on like she might have just been dramatic like let's not necessarily assume she was in psychological torture she might have just been doing it being we want to be fair
Starting point is 00:47:35 on how we portray this mentally ill woman also it does this annoying little winky thing to the future as well she says well I'm not going to get a divorce what am I going to do rent a flat in Kensington because she did do that That's the joke is that she did get a flat in Kensington
Starting point is 00:47:51 is the joke and it's like when they do stuff like that it's so beautiful that they have no audience right and it's just a echoing silence echoing back to him. So good. So okay so but then just as the sister is saying what a piece of shit Charles is he shows up right?
Starting point is 00:48:08 Yes, so I hope you don't mind I've arrived mid-sentence about me. Yeah, so let's carry this on. He shows up and she's like, how are the boys? He's like, I don't fucking know. Neither of us know we did not race them. It's insane that this musical thinks we have anything other than a passing handshake relationship with either of them.
Starting point is 00:48:30 Yeah. So, yeah, but he's very put out by all her suicide attempts. But at this point, he tells her he says he wants to make the marriage work for the sake of the media, right? For the sake of you stopping doing this. Yeah, right, right. So we don't do this ever again. Yeah. How do we cut this out?
Starting point is 00:48:49 Huh? Yeah. When we cut this out? Right. So, but she decides she wants to do more charity work. And then the queen cuts in to sing us a song about how hard it is to be a good billionaire leech of the public coffers. And I genuinely couldn't tell if the queen was entering the same room as that scene was happening in or not. Because the direction is everything just keeps flowing around so much that they're still on stage while the queen's singing.
Starting point is 00:49:10 I mean, you're not going to address the fact that your mom just walked in singing. No, okay. But she does That's what she's famous for She secretly smokes and sings Wherever she goes Yeah so but she sure is jealous of die And so is Camilla
Starting point is 00:49:26 Every other woman in this play Talks about how jealous they are Of Princess Die Every single one at all times Yeah and her startling beauty Yep Totally came in right women Sorry guys
Starting point is 00:49:39 You want to cut that I had a little cough Oh yeah yeah no I'll cut it out So then we get Diana meeting Cancer patients and Charles wishing he was more beloved. Oh, she loved hanging out with cancos.
Starting point is 00:49:51 That's what Marsh calls him, cancos. We're extending it to cancer patients now. I'm just going through everything you've ever said is skeptically bad, and then whatever the subject is, you hate those people. I thought he's going through anything anyone my family's ever suffered with. Yeah, that's just, I thought it was, I think it's a good crossover. So then we cut to the Royal Ballet Gala, where we're going to spend some fucking time, right? This movie has fast-forwarded through the birth of her kids
Starting point is 00:50:16 and her multiple suicide attempts and her bulimia to really dig in on the Royal Ballet Gala. Which was a thing. It was a scandal. You simple whore, if you only knew what a scandal this was, no allusioned. You red-cheeked rub.
Starting point is 00:50:36 You don't understand the tears that were shed. She danced with Wayne's sleep. Yes. Volga. Yes. It was, she essentially shoved the prima donna of the English ballet up her vagina in right in the queen's face. That's basically what she did, Noah.
Starting point is 00:50:55 So, okay, so the scene starts off with Charles sitting down and he's like, hey, where's my wife? And the assistant goes, well, I believe she's still in the bathroom, sir. And he goes, fucking bitch, I was going to fucking piss on every god game. The servant is going, oh, she's, um, she's busy pissing, sir. I believe she's in the middle of a piss. She's doing one of those long shits where you feel. bad but not like you know that if you can just get the whole shit out you'll be fine but it's a real
Starting point is 00:51:18 journey so then they're like you know here comes the ballet dancer inside this moustachio ballet dancer comes on and then diana comes out and dances with him and yeah right and like apparently charles and his mom hate dance like john lithgow and fucking footloose oh my guy they according to this musical they then banished everyone from this public he just stands up and he's like, everybody out. Yes. Out to the Royal Gala immediately. And Diana says to him, I did it to make you proud.
Starting point is 00:51:48 But if Diana did do that in real life to make him proud, she actually is an idiot because he's been quite clear. He'd hate that so much. Yeah. It's a really stupid thing to do to make him proud. And the scene that takes place afterwards is, and I really need you to internalize this podcast listener, the confrontation from Le Miz,
Starting point is 00:52:06 but it's Charles and Diana having a fight about her doing a little ballet. Yes. And him, every rhyme ends with. her name. Every one of his lines is Diana. At this point, the fucking writers discovered that, right? They're like, hey, guys, guys,
Starting point is 00:52:19 you could just end every line with the same word and everything rhymes because they do that like four more times in this fucking movie. Okay, can I give you guys my favorite lyric from this confrontation scene? Oh, please, yes. Stop being a martyr, Diana. Why can't you be smart, Diana?
Starting point is 00:52:39 We should also point out that this song, has a distorted guitar desperately trying to convince us that it fucking rocks. He's trying to shred so hard and it is failing at the shred. It also has some distorted pronunciation because at one point Prince Charles
Starting point is 00:52:54 says the word, be practical to her. I don't know what that's meant to be. Yeah. But yes, she sings about how sad it all is and I'm like, oh, that must be why it hurts so much to watch. And then she has this fucking song
Starting point is 00:53:09 that she sings where the chorus of is her going, Te Amo, Te Kiro, I'll say it every way I know. But then she doesn't say it any other ways, right? And she just repeats. Yeah, well, she comes back to it one other time and I'm just like, well, say, like, if you're going to do that, then you have to say I love you in like 10 different languages is a big part of the song. But no.
Starting point is 00:53:32 I want to going through like Mandarin. I want to going through Klingon, just like some of those weird ones from Lord of the Rings. Like really go deep. Right, right. All the pigeon Englishes. Yeah, so, yeah. She's not allowed to do those voices. Not when there's royalty on stage.
Starting point is 00:53:47 You can't put those voices together with royalty. Fun fact, still what my BBC is set to and we'll never change. Lovely stuff. Sure, sure. So, okay, so then Charles shows up at Camilla's place, right? Her husband answers the door and he's like, let me get my chair, you know. And then they sing maybe my least favorite song in the whole fucking show, this I miss you most on Sunday's song. It's certainly the most boring possible hook for a love song
Starting point is 00:54:15 is that I miss you most on Sundays. That is the most boring sentiment you could possibly address. Yeah, except perhaps Tuesday afternoon because there's half-price apps at the Applebee's. You know when your buddy has gone through a breakup and you're comforting him, you're at his house and he's crying, and he thinks he's telling you something really deep and meaningful he and his ex used to do, he's like,
Starting point is 00:54:36 and then we would watch stranger things and you're not allowed to say a lot of people watch that show together and separately and it's not your thing. This is that monologue, the song. It's that song. The song has them going from like,
Starting point is 00:54:51 oh, something about passions of blaze. And the next line is like, lazy walks and silly talks. You can't have silly talks and lazy walks as your thing. That is not your thing, Camilla. Yeah, that would be like your song being shaving a haircut.
Starting point is 00:55:06 Can't do that. That's not fair. But the point of this, seen, though, is that Camilla is pretty sure that they can still make the tampon thing happen, so they decide to just fuck on the side. At, their solution is to conduct
Starting point is 00:55:18 their affair in their friends, plural, castle's plural. Yes. Relatable stuff. Relatable drama. The Polly members of our audience get it. You got to use the occasional buddy castle. Hey, you're not going to hear me
Starting point is 00:55:39 until the commercial break is over because I'm doing that noise in the background and no one cut it. So then we cut to Diana being mad about this to her sister, right? But this is where she decides she's got an idea. She's going to take control of the press herself. And again, the lyrics are so bad.
Starting point is 00:55:59 There's one line in this song. too many smiles, too many yeses, too many dreams which Charles depresses. Oh my God. Is this translated from a different language? Has this been through several different translators to get back to this? Because that's not an English sentiment.
Starting point is 00:56:15 Ah. And of course, we're like desperately trying to get to dresses there as I'm sure the audience already knew, right? Yes, yes. The chorus of this song is a pretty, pretty girl in a pretty dress. And I just wrote in my notes, Gloria Steinem is so proud. this is the first time
Starting point is 00:56:33 we get the magic wardrobe change right to further bastard days Eli's heart only slightly belied by the fact that she is wearing a circus balloon in the first half of the scene she explains that too many of the dresses in her wardrobe have too many frilly frumpy fruffles
Starting point is 00:56:49 you didn't have to rhyme yourself into that corner you wrote this it could have been something other than an uffles to rhyme with that they didn't know about delete did they yeah so also also by the way, this song
Starting point is 00:57:02 has a distorted guitar and a harpsichord. Like, okay, so, like, like, okay, everything sounds like shit with a harpsichord, because a harpsichord sounds like shit, but nothing sounds worse with a harpsichord than a fucking distorted guitar. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:57:18 So, okay, so, but during this song, Charles realizes that he needs to pick a worthy cause, right? That's why Dai is getting all the good press and he's getting shitty press, is because she's got the AIDS and the cancer patients or whatever. And I'm like, oh, please, don't pick homeopathy, but no, he picks architecture. Yes, because he gave like a public lecture
Starting point is 00:57:36 on architecture in order to try and find a way to, like, renovate his own public image. And obviously, he did actually do architecture, so they went with architecture to rhyme it with lecture, but also because there was no way they were going to find a rhyme for biodynamic agriculture, one of his other big passions. Honestly, they would have just rhymed bore, right? They don't care. They don't care.
Starting point is 00:57:57 To be fair, of all the things Charles decided to speak out openly about. Architecture is the only one he was kind of sort of right about. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And some stuff around the environment he's not bad on. He's like, hey, he shouldn't destroy the environment, please. Okay, you stick to those two topics
Starting point is 00:58:14 and say nothing else ever again, please. Have you considered how easy Indians are to kill? No, we're doing architecture? All right, fine. But of course, he's trying to do his lecture on architecture, but everybody is focused on Diana's dresses instead. And the Queen's is embarrassed because
Starting point is 00:58:32 Diana's wearing too many dresses wearing the wrong dresses I don't know the dress wearing is bad yeah it's so bad it's so bad like her big empowerment moment is wearing another dress this is the feminist story
Starting point is 00:58:47 that I think it is and she's like just coming from going across the stage in a different dress she's wearing a hat at one point in that oh it's not her because she's coming from the other side it's a different body drovel in a dress to try and there's many dresses packed into this small thing as possible.
Starting point is 00:59:02 Then the overall effect, because she's wearing so many layered costume to get in as many dresses at once, the overall effect is to make it look like Dana spent half her life in ill-fitting dresses. That did nothing to flatter her at all. One out of four dresses will look great. And it has
Starting point is 00:59:17 a line which again, this is one of the most perfect lines to sum up this entire fucking musical. The stories girls are taught to believe are not the stories that a girl should believe. Nails it, everybody. Let's head to lunch.
Starting point is 00:59:35 What could rhyme better than believe and believe? It's a perfect rhyme. All right, well, it looks like Diana has a plan, and that plan is to wear, dresses, and be pretty. So we get to take a break. But first, let me give Act 3 the hard sell. Will the play examine the deep psychological harm the public dissolution of their parents' marriage
Starting point is 00:59:54 must have had on William and Harry? Would doing so underscore how fucked up it is to make a musical about it. Will they just devote an entire musical number to that time she wore an overly cleavagey dress instead? Find out the answers to these questions and more. We'll return for the discordant conclusion of Diana. The Musical. Hey, podcast listener, by now you probably already know that we'll be doing god-awful movies live in San Francisco on April 3rd. And most of those tickets are sold out, but there are still a few general admission tickets left, and we've got just the news we need to sell them. We are pleased to announce that we're going to be joined on stage by our very own guest masochist,
Starting point is 01:00:34 Kara Santa Maria for the live show. Really, guys, right in front of me. But you can't come to America, they'd throw you in a gulag. Still! That's right. Kara will be live on stage for all the shenanigans you've only ever heard. But act fast. There are less than 100 tickets left, and we have a feeling they're going to go pretty fast.
Starting point is 01:00:53 Okay, has Kara ever paused to read a fake newspaper? Never. She hasn't. So grab your tickets where you can at godawfulmovieslive.com. That's godawfulmovieslive.com. Have I mentioned how close I've grown to Cecil since we started doing a show together? It's almost like we become best friends. Too far, Mars!
Starting point is 01:01:14 You started it. All right, gentlemen, I call to order this meeting of the evil British elites who will kill Princess Diana. Now, as you know, we're planning to kill Diana as revenge for embarrassing the crown with her affairs and philandering. It's perfect. Sorry. Yes, Reginald. Right.
Starting point is 01:01:45 Is it perfect, though? Of course it's perfect. We're going to kill her. Right. It just seems like that would just make her a national martyr rather than a... fading in popularity tabloid subject. Oh, yes, it might do that. Also, also, if we're killing her for having affairs,
Starting point is 01:02:07 are we killing Charles, too? Or Andrew, I mean, Andrew did kids even. No, no, I think he's on our side, is the thing. Is he? Because he shouldn't be. Look, look, we're going to kill Diana, and it's not going to make her a martyr or anything. Everyone will be like, whoa, Diana's dead. I better not embarrass the queen ever, ever,
Starting point is 01:02:28 again. Okay. Okay. So, I feel like we're just going to end up with a very expensive Beanie Baby. I don't even know what that means. I'm not sure that I do. The most expensive Beanie Baby is the Princess Die commemorative Beanie Baby. Really? Oh, Jesus Christ. Yep. I'm surprised that everyone in England doesn't know that. I assume you have one. It's your legacy.
Starting point is 01:02:56 Right. And we're back for more of this shit and we're going to rejoin the action with Barbara Cartland showing back up like she's from Tony D's house of side pieces. It's so great. You did not think Barbara Cartland had more in her in this, but she does.
Starting point is 01:03:13 She's back surprised Baba Cartland, bitches. I guess. And what's so weird is that she's here to introduce Diana's Affair, Singular. Yes. We'll go with Singular for now. Yeah, certainly in the musical. But the thing is, like, Charles's affair has been this marriage-destroying, first act creating, suicide-causing problem.
Starting point is 01:03:38 And her affair will be this one burlesque number. And that is, like, they will barely talk about it for the rest of the play. They'll just be like, oh, she fucked a guy too. Right, yeah. So now this is James Hewitt, and yes, that does rhyme with Do It. they will get almost no use out of that. Almost no. But I almost went with best best, best entrance
Starting point is 01:04:01 because he enters this entire thing. On the back of like, was he like a fake, like a pommel horse basically, but shirtless in Jodhpahs or insane, insane decision. Yeah, he's shirtless on a saddle. Singing his name of like, James Hewett. Yes, exactly. Like announcing himself like a Pokemon.
Starting point is 01:04:20 Well, okay. And the other thing, too, that makes this so fucking weird is that we meet him long before Diana shows up. So it's just Barbara Cartland singing about how fuckable this young man is for a really long time. And it would have been great if that was the entire number. And then we go back to Dinah's song. Barbara Cartland was an absolute cougar, man. Sorry.
Starting point is 01:04:47 James Hewitt paid a lot in the Kickstarter for this music. It's always said to a number about how far. Fuckable, yes. So, yeah, but then Diana shows up and they have some really strained innuendo. We're in a horror sequel's a penis. Mm. And then the old lady sings about how the two of them fucked, right?
Starting point is 01:05:05 Yep. Yeah. While every time his name gets said, the backing women keep going, oh, oh, James Hewitt. He did go around with a crowd of women that every time he flirted in real lives, his backing women,
Starting point is 01:05:18 uh, oh, oh, James Hewitt. It's so hard to remember throughout this entire thing that it was done in earnest, right? Like, that it wasn't just setting us up, yeah. But, okay, so we should probably address that, like, most of this movie is just an argument against monogamy, right? It is, it is. Are you about to accuse me of writing Diana the musical?
Starting point is 01:05:41 For the last time, no comment, no illusion. And how do you follow up a song with such a profound name as Pretty Girl in a dress? why with a song called There's Him, There's Her where the main refrain is there's him, there's her. Yes, and then it rhymes with There's Him
Starting point is 01:06:02 and Her. It just keeps going, there's him and her, and him and her, and then there's him and her. It's like, the 60% of this song is the words him and her, and it is not interesting. Even Barbara Cartland looks like she is not interested in selling this. And we've
Starting point is 01:06:18 seen some of the stuff Barbara Carlin sold, in her books and this is she is looking down on this song that's how bad it is yeah so that we get
Starting point is 01:06:26 that song and then we get Chuck and Die together at a formal event and they're singing this song like where
Starting point is 01:06:32 Dai is trying to say stuff and he doesn't want to listen to it so he just keeps saying just dance and she'll like say something
Starting point is 01:06:39 and he'll be like just shut the fuck up all right yeah and he's got a point here like stop backstoring so aggressively
Starting point is 01:06:45 Diana you're in public just have a dance like just quit for old Mormon just have one evening, please. But she explains that she really wants to make her marriage work with him, even though
Starting point is 01:06:56 she's fucking her jockey guy or whatever the hell he is, cavalry officer guy. Yeah, there's one fantastic moment in here where Charles is considering running off to Camilla the way that she wants to run off with her guy and he says, maybe I'll run away to France like my uncle did for love.
Starting point is 01:07:12 And just a quick reminder, it was not for love. His uncle ran off to France. It was picked the wrong side in World War II. Just a quick history lesson. So, yeah, but so, and then we get the scene where, like, Chuck's, like, spy or whatever tells him that, that his wife is fucking James Hewitt. Yeah, who the fuck is that knock?
Starting point is 01:07:32 And why does he get a song riff right now to nowhere? Right. But, yeah, then he runs off to Camilla and he's like, you know, I would give up the crown for you. Never happened. He never said that. He suggested he'd not be king over Camilla. At all. So, yeah, but then Chuck and die
Starting point is 01:07:52 We see they're on either side of the stage Leaving their side pieces or whatever And then after they're gone The side pieces sing for a little while As though the two of them are gonna fuck now Yes, that's what I wrote Oh, Camilla and Hewitt are gonna run together Yeah, it's like James Hewitt
Starting point is 01:08:07 He's done Dana, he's at a pop of Barbara Cartland He's moving on to Camilla Like, oh, you go, James Hewitt Just fucking his way through the whole cast Oh God, it's the queen next If this is the queen, James Hewitt as king Perfect. Perfect. And equally historical as the rest of the music.
Starting point is 01:08:24 Yeah, right. Yes. It's okay. But when that song finally releases us, we get a scene where Chuck confronts her about being so damn charitable all the time, right? Yeah. This is the one time that we can all agree with the movie
Starting point is 01:08:38 where she's like, well, but Thatcher sucks. Right? And we're like, yeah, okay, yeah. No, Thatcher did suck. Yeah, I've got fuck you, Thatcher in my notes as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yep, there you go. It's nice that we can all.
Starting point is 01:08:48 all be united, right? Us, the royal family, the musical. Just everybody can all sit down to the table and agree that Margaret Thatcher fucking sucks. Yeah, everyone but my parents kind of agree that Margaret Thatcher is. Yeah, there you go. Well, so, okay, and then this is, so this is where we can really kind of see, I think, where the inspiration for this whole musical comes from? Because this scene is actually good, right?
Starting point is 01:09:10 This song is good in my mind. And it's celebrating the actual, like, you know, probably best thing that she did, right? This is the scene where she goes to visit with AIDS patients and they tell her, oh, you should put on gloves. And she's like, fuck you, I don't need to put on goddamn gloves. I'm not fingering them, right? Yes. And so she, like, got photographed, you know, hugging and embracing these
Starting point is 01:09:32 and shaking hands with these AIDS patients at a time when, like, everybody was scared to even be in a room with an AIDS patient, right? Yeah. But to be fair, Charles has got a point, because he says you should wear protection to avoid getting AIDS. And he's got a point, like, bag up down, and you don't know where Jim's he would spin. I bet you, I heard you foot bar with Carter.
Starting point is 01:09:48 So, like, you do need to have protection. She's quite the cougar, yeah. I'm surprised, I mean, I'm not surprised Charles is saying that about AIDS because the only HIV that Charles recognizes is Henry the 4th. This entire review was worth it for that line. I saw it in our notes and I was like, I will grind this review to a halt and be like, what other things do you have to say, Michael Marshall? There's also a great moment here where, you know, he's like, you know,
Starting point is 01:10:16 people are going to say you're an opportunist and she's like, oh, people badmouthed Mother Teresa. And I'm like, well, yeah, because Mother Teresa was fucking wrong about that. She was a terrible human being. I know you're just using a conversational convention, but I do need to point out every time someone mentions that lady that she tortured children for fun.
Starting point is 01:10:33 Yeah, she did. And I wrote, oh, God, that line didn't age well, even though it was written well after we knew she was a terrible person. Right. So yeah, exactly. Yep, yep. It was already that bad when it was born. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:10:44 So she goes off to, and he's like, try not to catch AIDS while you're at the thing. So she goes off to the thing. And then we actually have, like I said, the only good song in the entire thing where she's talking with the AIDS patients. There is something like pretty fucking awkward about the dying AIDS patient musical number.
Starting point is 01:11:03 Yeah, that really. But it is the high point of the movie. And it's, here's the thing. Like, this is really genuinely one of the most wonderful things that Diana did, such a humanizing and important thing. During the 80s, it's sort of to the peak of,
Starting point is 01:11:16 homophobia along with the AIDS crisis. Yeah. This scene is a little much, right? They all kind of turn into little orphan Annie sort of clinging to her legs. And you are my pet homosexuals who I will always remember. Yeah, giving her proper little lines, like reviewing her outfit and stuff. Oh, yeah, apart from your fashion sense, Diana. It's like, okay, that's a bit of a catty thing to say,
Starting point is 01:11:41 given that's the one thing that Dana is claimed to be empowered by is her fashion sense. and these gay guys are having a pop at it. Like, oh, come on, guys. Have some decorum. So, yeah, so she's like, well, we should all get our picture taken together. And they're like, oh, well, you know, there's a huge prejudice against, you know, people with AIDS and gay people. And we probably don't want to do that. And she's like, oh, come on.
Starting point is 01:11:59 And they're like, oh, shucks. Yeah, let's do that. Fine, okay. But if I get fired, I'm going to die from AIDS way faster. Okay. Oh, why not? So, but again, like, yeah, absolutely go. I love to take risks.
Starting point is 01:12:11 What did I say? Yeah, right. So, God. So then, okay, so then we get Diana talking to her sister about how, you know, her privilege is so very problematic, which I'm sure she talked about a lot. She's like, oh, our problems are so minuscule. It's like, yeah, Diana, your problems were so minuscule. Like, yeah, you're right. Absolutely correct.
Starting point is 01:12:31 Yes. Yeah. Small problems. Also, maybe you don't know this, but your problems have been what the first half of the musicals about. You can't really shit on them now. I also don't know if this moment was on purpose, but this is what happens in the musical. She's like putting it on her earrings. She's like, oh, I don't know.
Starting point is 01:12:47 Just sometimes I feel like our problems are so small. Where's my fucking dinner? I feel like that wasn't on purpose. Yep, but that actually is the sequence. And she's like, well, I don't know. You know, maybe I'm overblowing this. I don't even think he's still fucking Camilla anymore. And her sister's like, well, no, no, no.
Starting point is 01:13:07 He's going to a fucking Camilla party tonight. Right? And then Diana's like, oh, well, then I'm going to a fucking Camilla party so then we go to the party and Diana like surprises her way in and everybody gasps before they gasp like they're expecting this to be talking about how this is a boring party because it's such a kind of an upper class kind of party
Starting point is 01:13:28 it's got a line from the crowd they're saying nights like this I envy the poor their parties can't possibly be such a bloody bore oh fuck you it was probably great being baby Marsh at this point right you got to fucking you and your fellow smudgy-faced orphans
Starting point is 01:13:47 were just checking chimneys for bits of goals. Yeah, mid of the minor strike on the doll. Yeah, exactly. Just a bunch of people being like, all right to be Princess Diana and confronting my husband's mistress right now. I tell you that for sure. Oh, I've been shot. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:14:04 But then the very boring party gets super exciting. It gets to be, quote, the thriller in Manila between Diana and Camilla. that is the only clever rhyme in the entire goddamn play, right? I think it's the rhyme from which this musical was birthed. Yep, yep. They've seen the rap battle scene from Hamilton and thought, I think we can do that.
Starting point is 01:14:26 We've got one line. I think we can vamp the rest, actually. I think he did it. He just had one good line and he vamp the rest and it came out well, so let's go for it, guys. Yes, they have a fucking rap battle. Like, Diana and Camilla go downstairs into the basement to rap battle each other. Oh, and I really wanted it to devolve into a basement fight club
Starting point is 01:14:44 or possibly evolve into a basement fight club. Yes, right? Now, and I don't want to get you too excited when I say it becomes a rap battle. Here is one of the actual lines, which I think we all wrote down in our goddamn notes. Oh, oh, oh, you're completely mad. Such delusion and confusion. How bloody sad. Oh, yeah, it is.
Starting point is 01:15:11 It is really bad. It is really bad. I just complimented in my notes. I had, like, the ink had not dried on my compliment about the fucking Thriller and Manila rhyme. And then they did that to me. I'm like, oh, dude, come on. But yeah, so Chuck shows up to break up their rap battle.
Starting point is 01:15:32 Does he come in with a bat out of hell reference? I swear he comes in with a like, you better stop right there. I've got a no right now or something like that. Oh, had I just gone mad by this point? Oh, okay. And was, like, picturing meatloaf, like, injected into this. I don't know. But I swear that was a bad out of hell reference.
Starting point is 01:15:48 It would have been the right time, culturally. Sure. But he didn't know meatloaf. So, like, watch it again. Find out. See what you think. Not a chance in hell, Marsh. So, yeah, but also, I want to point out here,
Starting point is 01:16:00 because this is, like, the 15th time this movie has had Diana stop and, like, look right at the camera and go, I want to make this marriage work. It's entirely because of the kids and my response. for the traditional family, I have nothing else to gain from this. I want it to work, right? But yeah, so she does
Starting point is 01:16:18 her, like she goes after all as enablers in her song, and then she does a mic drop and she leaves. I think as she leaves, one of the last lines is fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. That's where we're going with this as well. So she rhymes fun with fun with fun, sorry, she rhymed fun with fun with done, and then
Starting point is 01:16:34 with fun again. With fun, yes. It was fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. It was not fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. None of that was fun, fun, fun. But if you don't say fun, fun, fun, it won't catch up with where you need the ride to be Mars.
Starting point is 01:16:45 Come on. Don't be a dick. So then we, like, we have this after battle, after rap battle drive home, right? Yes. This is where she accuses him of spying on her. And as someone whose mom followed all of this drama when it was happening,
Starting point is 01:17:01 this was a huge part of the Diana drama is who was spying for who and who was spying on whom. But just, I want to remind everyone that everyone involved in this is a member of the royal family currently, right? It wasn't so much spying as, well, my royal retinue drove me over to here
Starting point is 01:17:19 and we are aware of that. Right. I mean, not everyone's currently a member of the royal family. Famously, at least one person in Diana the musical is no longer a member of the film. At this point in the muse. Okay, okay, fair. So, yeah, but she goes,
Starting point is 01:17:32 three, two, one monogamy starting now, and he's like, no, no, let's just both fuck around. Damn, all right, let's just do that. which is great, right? So she goes to James Hew and she says, hey, I have permission to like fuck you as much as we want but this is when he tells her
Starting point is 01:17:48 that he's been transferred to Germany, right? Yes, he's like, I got transferred to which she responds, if you leave, you and I are no more. And I wrote my notes, yes, that's how it works. That's how leaving works. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:18:03 But she's like, well, I can make your transfer not happen. You know, you're in the military. I'm the fucking princesses. and shit. And he's like, no, I must go to Germany for my honor. And I'm like, you're not at war with them. This is the 80s. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, he's been assigned to Germany for two years. That's 40 years too late. Germany legitimately isn't far enough for this to be that much of an issue. No. It's fine. We can still see each other a weekend. It's like, yeah, your, your royalty,
Starting point is 01:18:29 you can probably hop a plane on the hour and a half it takes you to get to Germany. You'll be fine. It's just, that's just like, that's across the state in many states here and U.S. Yeah. No, don't you understand. I hate to fly easy jet. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, we should probably break up.
Starting point is 01:18:45 So, but he doesn't want to be her sidepiece anymore, so he storms off. And thus ended all her infidelity, okay? So, okay, so she's singing to herself again. And then we all get excited for a moment because she calls somebody on the phone and she goes, Andrew, I must speak to you. And we're like, oh, what? He was so excited. The jokes are about to get so much easier.
Starting point is 01:19:07 But no, it's a different, Andrew. I'd forgotten about the Andrew Morton, Andrew Morson, I forget the guy's name, the book that he'd written about it. I completely forgot about that. But yeah, I was so excited when it was Andrew for a moment. And they do a weird thing here, which, again, as someone whose mother
Starting point is 01:19:22 obsessively followed all of this, they make it seem like she chose to do the Andrew Morton book because her affair was over. Like, she was like, well, now that I'm not cheating on anyone, the truth must come out. And she had been working on that book throughout, like whatever motivations you want to give to Diana
Starting point is 01:19:40 and I think a bunch of them are actually kind of sexist but like whatever motivations you want to give to Diana writing that book and leaking those tapes it's not that she was like well my affair's over so fuck it now we're no cheating allowed right right so yeah but so this is where she decides that she's going to fight him heroically in the tabloids so what she's going to do is this guy who's writing a book about her
Starting point is 01:20:00 she's going to like record tapes of herself answering all his questions and then send those to him Yeah, this is so fucking stupid She doesn't want to give him anything on the record So she's dead dropping him audio tips So now there's audio of her saying these things With zero deniability She might as well have offered to have the tapes
Starting point is 01:20:21 Notarized and then sealed with her specific wax seal When you give them all that I need to be secret so you can only have my thumbprint Yeah, right, right And all my passwords So but he writes her story They do this song where the refrain is like that the words come pouring out, right?
Starting point is 01:20:39 And then it's the something else comes pouring out and then the hate comes pouring out or whatever. They really tried very hard to make and then the guy with the typewriter type down the words that she said seem really urgent and exciting. Yeah, but everybody rushes to read the book the prince sees it and he
Starting point is 01:20:58 and finds out what's in it and he is not pleased at all. And the thing is the only reason we know that this happened, like the whole thing with the tape recorder is because after Diana died, Andrew Morton, the writer, republished the book as a second edition with all of the third person bits turned into first person bits
Starting point is 01:21:15 to make it clear that, oh no, she said this to actually to me directly to capitalize on her death. Because it was like, well, people have said that this is what's happening with Diana and then they change that to this is what's happening with me right now and published that after she died,
Starting point is 01:21:27 very soon after she died. This is a find and replace job. This is excellent. Yeah, 100%. All right. So then we cut to Charles talking to his mom about the book, right? And she's like, is it true? And he's like, I don't, why you got to bring it up old shit?
Starting point is 01:21:42 Yeah. He's like, do you want to meet my mistress, mom? And she's like, no. No, man. I believe that happened. I do believe that. Yeah, that's probably real. I just want to have a moment of sympathy for the queen mother here.
Starting point is 01:22:01 This is the queen. Not the queen mother. Again, to be clear, who's different lady. As a child was brought by the hand out during the bombings to show solidarity with their people. And now her 30-something-year-old son is like, yes, I have it tough too, mother. I'm cheating on my wife with my mistress. There had to be a moment where Elizabeth was like, could you all just fucking tighten it up?
Starting point is 01:22:28 Could we all just sort of chuck it in a little bit? I know you guys aren't doing the Nazi thing, but I did the Nazi thing. So if we could all just sort of tuck it, just tuck it in. I would agree, except she may have said, why aren't you more like my very famous
Starting point is 01:22:45 favored of my children, Andrew? Yeah, that's possible. So if she had been trying to modify the behavior of the others, I don't think it's modifying it in a better direction. He's hanging out with kids all the time.
Starting point is 01:22:57 He loves charities. Oh, no. So, okay, and then we get this scene, I love this so goddamn much. So Charles is, he's painting a landscape that they're going to use on a stamp. On a stamp. I can't do this right now. I've got important stamps to design.
Starting point is 01:23:12 Yes, right. He's got to say they have to present all the hard stuff he has to do as prints. But on the stage show, they've set the easel way too low. Right? So he's like trying to paint right around the area of his penis. It makes no fucking sense. If he turned it and it was a self-portrait of his penis, it would make sense. Right.
Starting point is 01:23:31 Yeah. Right, well, so they don't want to cover the man's face while he's trying to sing and do his stuff. So they've put this easel, like, tiny, like smurf-sized or whatever. It's fucking hilarious. So, yeah, but this is where he says he's got an idea. He sends his guy out of the room, right, his security guy or whatever. The guy's name is William. Why not just give that character a name that isn't one of your kids' names?
Starting point is 01:23:53 Yes. But anyway, he sends that guy away and he's like, I've got an idea. Well, specifically what he says, there is one thing I've been considering, but it's rather drastic. and I wanted him to say, I know a guy in Paris. What if we get her driver drunk? He goes, what do you think? And he goes, I think a song.
Starting point is 01:24:12 And I'm like, God damn it. Fuck. But what he thinks is that he should go on TV and admit that he's fucking Camilla. Right? Because that'll help. Or at least that he tried super hard not to fuck Camilla
Starting point is 01:24:25 and just fell short of that high standards. Yeah. Guys, this really has. And it is one of the most excruciating things that has ever happened in world history. If I could undo Charles' weird interview where he admits to his affair or the Holocaust, I'd pick the Holocaust, but I'd pause for long enough that everyone would be mad at me. You know what I'm saying? I don't think this is that bad in the sense of it's not even the worst interview.
Starting point is 01:24:55 A child of the queen has given to a British new year. You can't just always go back to the fact that Andrew is an unrepent pedophile, March, okay? No, you can go back to the fact that he felt that interview helped clear his name from being an unrepentant paeophile because he said it was impossible for him to sweat
Starting point is 01:25:13 and that he was in a pizza express at the time. Yep, I did forget that. I still feel like the Charles... I'm going to say, I still feel like the Charles one of his word. And then he's like, I think that went well. I thought that was good, guys. Mum, yes, I just wanted to let you know I've cleared everything up.
Starting point is 01:25:29 No, I told them I don't sweat. Yeah, no, don't worry. So, okay. So, but now he's going on TV and Diana's got to figure out what she's going to do when Paul has an idea that is a song. Paul is her manservant or whatever. No small parts, Paul. Fuck yeah. And his idea is her tits.
Starting point is 01:25:50 Right? Yes. The revenge dress. The revenge dress. And I think this again comes from Paul Burrell's side of the story because he's making up. that he came up with the revenge dress. I think the revenge dress is one of the dresses he stole after she died.
Starting point is 01:26:05 There was definitely a series of dress that he'd left to die. I wouldn't be surprised that this was one of them. Oh, wow. Okay, but Marsh, just follow with me here. Okay. The revenge dress in your house was a nuclear bomb had been dropped on London.
Starting point is 01:26:19 The amount of photos of a revenge dress that showed up in my life after she wore this slightly revealing shoulderless unspeakable, unspeakable. Yes, no, this was everywhere, and that's why it gets an entire ridiculous song about it,
Starting point is 01:26:37 including the line, a bitch on wheels in six-inch heels. And I thought, that sounds like a really precarious get-up for her revenge dress. Like, if only her revenge dress was for her to be on wheels, to be, like, wielding like siege equipment. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:26:53 Oh, like Hannibal Lecter. Now there's revenge dress, right? Yeah. Yeah, but she wears the revenge dress. Or, as they say in this song, the F you dress, or no, the feck you dress. The feckity, feckety, fecky, fecky, fecky dress. That's the dressing question, yes. And they say that like eight times. So then we have the queen like, she sits down Chuck and die for a stern talking to, right?
Starting point is 01:27:20 Sorry, as they're setting up this scene, the disservants chastise us for being interested in this play. For a second. going to do. Right, they look right at it? All you sods can't get enough. Have you got no shame? It's pretty fucking preachy Western musical about her affairs and her tragic death. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:27:38 Also, like, there was an actual war of the roses. Relax. Okay. So, yeah. But then the queen talks to him and, well, first she talks about how much she wishes she could behead Diana. Right. Yeah, just casually referring to how much easier it would be if the queen could have Diana
Starting point is 01:27:55 killed. It's like, okay, we know what you do. here. We know what this musical is alluding to here. One person in that writer's room was like, so we're just going to hide the truth. We're just going to hide the truth. This is a reason that Heath is off this week. Honestly, I left a gap in my
Starting point is 01:28:09 notes because I thought Heath would be beyond this. There's going to be like a 15-minute bit where I have to talk Heath's down from this conspiracy theory as well. Yep, yep. But yeah, but Diana explains that she wants a divorce. Well, the queen has a song for her.
Starting point is 01:28:24 So now the queen is going to sing her bio to us. Well, not her real bio too. No, the version of the queen where she was just the wife of an officer. That's all she ever was. Look, I don't, like, she's saying, oh, I was just like Diana once. And she wasn't anything like Diana once. She was always one in line to the throne. You know, that's all, that's what that was.
Starting point is 01:28:48 And it's not like she married. It wasn't ever that her husband was the one in line to the throne. It was the queen who was in line to the throne. It was the queen who was in line to the throne. I have got zero respect for the monarchy, but do not do the Q Dog Dirty like this song. You're so dirty. It's fucking.
Starting point is 01:29:01 So this is a thing that she mentioned one time in one interview. It's the most PRE of PRs. She didn't even bother sticking to it, right? They were like, hey, you and your husband lived on this island for a little bit. And she was like, oh, yeah, I loved being poor. Being poor, it's the fucking best or whatever. And they were like, hey, guys, we need to talk about the queen's deep, deep, deep desire to just be an officer's
Starting point is 01:29:24 wife. It needs an entire musical number. An entire fucking song. Where she longs for the fucking sea. Yes, exactly. But in the middle of her longing, suddenly everyone around her in a voice way too loud for the moment sings, but then the king
Starting point is 01:29:40 died. But then the king died. I genuinely spat out what I was drinking. It's the funniest. The funniest part of the musical. There's no words for how loud and how sudden it happens. Imagine telling the story of the actual fucking queen by leading with the man she was married to.
Starting point is 01:29:58 That's what we're doing here. Yeah. But she says, she got pops rotsied too, damn it. And she didn't go fucking James Hewitt about it. Right? But then...
Starting point is 01:30:09 That we ever found out about it. Well, that we know about, right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we've seen how James is with this cast, you know. I never fucked him except for when I was dressed as Barbara Cartland. But then, but the queen says that they can get, divorced, right?
Starting point is 01:30:24 Yeah. And then Diana says about how, well, you're going to have all of your bodyguards. And I says, I don't want the bodyguards. That's going to be people who are like going to be spying on me at all times. And the queen does this like, well played.
Starting point is 01:30:37 Yes. Yeah, well, no. I was totally. Like she's already mentally on the phone to a drunken French chauffeur, show for while, uh, while Diana is saying this. Like, Ory, I've got a mission for you. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:30:47 So, no. So, yeah, but she's like, well, you'll need the, the security because the, the paparazzi will be hounding you and driving really fast behind you and stuff and she's saying, no, no, no, I'll be fine, I'm sure. And can I say like, look, this musical is by no means tasteful, but it gets really weirdly not tasteful
Starting point is 01:31:09 in this moment, right? When she's like, what's going to happen? I'm so dead. Come on. Be chill. I also, I want to draw your attention to one other line in this song that the Queen sing. as Diana leaves and she's singing
Starting point is 01:31:24 to herself. She's singing about herself in the third person here. She says she never complained. What the fuck did she have? She's the Queen of God damn England. Yes. Yeah. So, okay. So then
Starting point is 01:31:40 Diana comes out for a swan song, which is awkward because the queen actually owns all of the swans. I don't know. Just to do a goose song. But yeah, but she's singing about how great it's going to be to be a regular person again? And my opening line here is just die already. Come on.
Starting point is 01:31:58 We know where this is going. I'll be a regular person. I can stand in a queue again. It's like, yeah, like you're just going to be a regular lady in the queue at Starbucks at any point in the rest of your life. Ridiculous. I've got a regular latte for a lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Earl, Spencer
Starting point is 01:32:14 formerly Prince. Actually, can we make it a large I can't fit all the titles on the side of the call? We gave you a Trenta so we could do all your titles. It's only half full though. So yeah. Oh, and then Camilla does meet the queen after all. And we learned that Diana auctioned off some of her most famous dresses.
Starting point is 01:32:32 Yep. We learned that from Paul Burrell. Yeah. No, he's announcing that smuggling, knowing he's already lifted the best ones from a war before the auction takes place. Oh, look, to your credit, she did auctioned those off for, like, cancer and apparently a landmines crisis march? Was there a landmines crisis in England? And can I make jokes about a And she, was it Mozambique or I forget where it was, but she walked through a landmine, like a field of landmines, like to bring awareness to the fact that there were shitloads of landmines lying around in countries. And that was another, like that, that and the age thing, like those are the two, like, she really did use her image for a good thing there, like the drawing attention to the fact that landmines were like a terrible thing and we should.
Starting point is 01:33:10 Man, I was picturing baby Marsh just hanging out on a big sea mine, you know, come on, Cheryl, not free and I'll give you me lunch money. Honestly, a musical, well, not a musical, but a West End show. that spent quite a lot of time around Princess Diana doing the landmine advocacy anti-advocacy, she wasn't pro-Latman She was pro-Latman, she was commercial in a place to make it across this fucking field
Starting point is 01:33:33 I should be toothpaste right now A play about how much time she spent preparing for that, that would have been genuinely there's some interesting to fare it's one line. Her landmine stuff gets one line. They don't even show her wearing the visor that she wore at the landmine thing
Starting point is 01:33:47 which is one of the most iconic images of Princess Diana. I don't think we see that. Right, you're right. But yeah, so, and then we see Camilla, like, and Charles together going like, well, I sure hope the queen doesn't live to be 116, right? Well, that would sure fucking suck. And then all of a sudden, the chorus just goes, breaking news out of Paris.
Starting point is 01:34:04 And we're like, already, okay, fine, I'll take it. Yeah, it's the AIDS guy announcing that she's dead. It is. I'm glad that guy did all right, actually, he came through. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it lived her anyway, yeah. So, yeah, they confirmed that Princess Diana has died, which is awkward because she's still on stage at this moment. She is. They're breaking the news to her that she's died.
Starting point is 01:34:22 She acts like she's hearing it from them. She's like, well, fuck. Have I been a ghost this whole time? Is that why she like awkwardly shuffles off stage? Because as she leaves the stage, she's walking so carefully like she shit herself. And all I can assume is that the stage wasn't deep enough for the amount of walking she needed to do by the end of the song. So she had to make every little step last. I had to make it milk that 14 bars of final.
Starting point is 01:34:46 And these are the last signs of this musical. I want to be very clear. Yep. The last line of this musical songline is, the people who will change the world are not the ones you think will change the world. Yeah, it's amazing. Incredible last line.
Starting point is 01:35:02 They wrote that and said, fiend. It's unreal. All right. Well, Marsh, it takes a lot to make an American living under the second Trump administration feel superior to any other nationality. but this play has managed to do it at least for this fleeting moment,
Starting point is 01:35:22 my sympathies to you. You know what? No problem at all. This is genuinely the fourth time. I've watched this and I guarantee it is not the last time. Not the last time. Coming back for another hit. All right.
Starting point is 01:35:34 Well, that's going to do it for our review of Diana the musical, although Marcius might be ongoing. But that is not going to do it for the episode just yet because we still have a whole more month of secular movies to go. So, Eli, tell us what's on deck? Well, Noah, to continue Heath's secular tackleer, we will be talking about one of the best, worst, good, bad movies ever made. We will be watching Nicholas Cage's face off.
Starting point is 01:36:04 Oh, God, I hope we'll find something to make fun of. I love that movie so much. Yeah, me too. Yeah, me too. This is going to be a problem. But with that to look forward to it, we're going to bring episode 538 to a merciful close once again, a huge thanks to all the Patreon donors that help make the show go. If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per episode donation
Starting point is 01:36:18 at patreon.com slash godawful, and thereby an early access to an ad-free version of every episode. You can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review and by sharing the show on all your various social media platforms. And if you enjoyed this show,
Starting point is 01:36:26 be sure to check out their sibling shows to skate the Aalya, the citation needed, D&D Minus, and the skeptic round of it below wherever podcasts live. If you have questions, comments, or cinematic suggestions, you can mail godawful movies
Starting point is 01:36:34 at gmail.com. Tim Robertson handles our social media. Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slatnik Vivile Javs on Mars. All the other music was written and performed by our audio engineer Morgan Corkin was used with permission.
Starting point is 01:36:42 Thanks again for giving us to check your life this week for Heath Enright and Eli Buzziag. I'm no Lucian's promise to work hard to earn another track next week. Until then, we'll leave you with the American graffiti clothes. Everyone involved in this musical had their fingers crossed that they get to do a sequel when things end up tragically from Megan. Oh, God.
Starting point is 01:37:02 England would continue to do the monarchy thing for decades after this. The queen wanted Diana's face off. I'm recording. Recording. I'm read. One. One, two, three, four.
Starting point is 01:37:42 Full five. Eli, are you there? I forgot to count. Okay, one more time. One, two, three, four, four, five. I also didn't hear you say I'm back, so I thought maybe we had lost you, but no. No. Just quite forgetful.
Starting point is 01:38:00 Twice in like the last four days. I was, I'm being honest with you. I was trying to figure a smooth way to work into the conversation that I'm on GLP once. I wanted to break about those. and that focus meant that I completely stopped thinking about our TLC1, 2, 3
Starting point is 01:38:17 that's the right, it's a perfect way All right, here we go Got certain the boundaries Yeah Recording I'm read Push None of the fucking buttons
Starting point is 01:38:31 Required of me It was insane Are you on now? How much I failed at that Yes, I'm on now But there are no words For how badly that went All right
Starting point is 01:38:40 Well, I'm going to do the five counts, so we'll correct it. I started off in the gay voice, and I realize, I'm not the posh gay anymore. I've got to turn it back, but... Turn straight, like Tommy Robertson. Any posh voice, it can go... Alice and Warren have this thing walking down the street of gay, posh or foreign, as to the person who's walking down the street, is that guy? Is he gay? Is he posh or is he foreign?
Starting point is 01:39:04 And it's actually quite difficult to tell. That's tricky. You can have that. Sure, sure. Eli, it's a real shame that nobody has come to you with the kind of money it would take to really just develop the podcast-averse in the way that you see it, right?
Starting point is 01:39:22 Just with full, like, computer animation and shit like that. Right? It's a shame. Fucking, who's so... I feel like Amazon Prime, they did the Santaverse. They owe me. Right? Yes, exactly, exactly. You're just deeper.
Starting point is 01:39:33 It's more thought out. Podcastiverse. So, Eli, you'd lose it any weight yet? No. Not yet. How long before you'll be losing weight you think? Probably tomorrow morning. Probably wake up. 20, 30 pounds down, 40, 50 pounds. I'd like, can I say? So here's the problem, right? If I just get a little thinner, right, and a little healthier and I'm just sort of back to being like a chubby dude, that's not funny. I need to go like full ozempic skin hanging off so that whenever anyone sees me, right? You remember how Toby got cancer. in the office, and then that actor was like, oh, I'm just not going to tell anybody I had cancer. No one will notice.
Starting point is 01:40:16 And then there's just a season of the office where that guy's like, hello, welcome to the guru bound. I want to be that and I want, because our audience is woke, I know how many of our listeners I will trap in literal hell, just being like, hey, how's you going? How's your summer been?
Starting point is 01:40:31 And they've been like, you are a skeleton. Talk about why you are bones. You are bones now. Where is your body? It doesn't work on Brits. I'll get off the plane and be like, that fella used to be fat, he did. Look at him.
Starting point is 01:40:49 Get my sandwich. All right. This content is scanned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm to their hotline at 617-249455 or on their website at creator accountability network.org.
Starting point is 01:41:04 This podcast is a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC and was created without the use of generative AI. Its contents may not be. be used for AI training. Copyright 2026, all rights reserved.

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