Queen of Oz

Ive not been a Catherine Tate fan in the past. I didn't think I would like this at all but I found it surprisingly enjoyable. In fact, I very much warmed to her character by the end and really hope for a series 2. I don't find shouty and rude humour funny but with the dynamics of our own royal family unraveling over the last few years, I think its very cleverly wrote. As a royalist who has an interest in the families dynamics, this had some very clever hidden references to many generations of the Royal Family. She depicts different royals in just one character. You'd automatically think it was Harry acting like a spoiled brat and he was probably the inspiration but I could see multiple people coming through. Fingers crossed for season 2. Marc is a total dish.

Halfway through s.1 and getting funnier by the episode. Just when you think this is cheerfully broad clowning, and all the better for being Catherine Tate leading the circus, the snappy one-liners kick in and keep on coming. Royal caricatures destruct-tested in an unlikely Aussie parallel universe. The unfinished koala joke from episode 1 is capped by the traumatic kangaroo event of ep.2 (which, shamefully was even funnier). Before the end of this first series, will there be a regal cock-up with the prawns at a Palace Barbie? An unspecified Vegemite Scandal by Royal Appointment? Will - and already I wouldn't put it past Her Australian Majesty - we see her Christmas Speech on the beach? More please.

Pleasantly surprised after the first episode, it's not as hackneyed or cringey as I expected. As a not easy to please viewer, I found a couple of laugh out loud bits and, compared to the other fare Auntie offers us currently, that's a decided plus. Also, any comedic material in the capable hands of Catherine Tate has a more than average chance of success. And, a good point made by another reviewer about not bingeing but going old school on the episodes - definitely recommended in this case. Let each episode percolate.

Now, to fill up the quota.

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Catherine Tate seems to be an 'all or nothing' performer to me. Sometimes her characters are very funny, sometimes they fall flat as a pancake. She does have a tendency to stretch a one-joke character so thin that eventually it snaps and the original joke becomes so overworked that it just isn't funny any more.

"Queen of Oz" doesn't seem to have a joke or a character that hasn't already been bent out of shape to fit into a shaky framework that just isn't funny. Some will love it I guess, but it's not for me.

The whole premise is so far-fetched as to be ridiculous, it's neither based in reality or interestingly surreal, it's just one of those ideas that seemed funny when you were drunk one night, but really can't stand the harsh light of day.

The absurd premise should be your first hint that this show is hilarious. The characters and plot develop nicely through the episodes.

From shrieking self-obsessed alcoholic Queen Georgiana develops into an understandably damaged, self-centred but not irredeemably so, woman managing the best she can in difficult circumstances.

Anything that could go wrong in her life does, and she reacts accordingly. Not necessarily sensibly, but accordingly. Not everything is her fault, although some of it really is. The band of misfits around her somehow survive.

I'm disappointed to read that it's been cancelled because the end of episode 6 is just leading into the next round of comedy-of-errors!

Nice structural symmetry, having the first and last episodes with very convincing vomit.