The Women of Windsor

Obviously aimed at the American market (who love this type of thing!) this made for TV trash is a dismal attempt to chronicle the lives of Fergie and Princess Diana (mostly the former) through their relationships in the 80s, their marriage break ups and their heartbreak and turmoil being a member of the British royal family.

The whole thing has a whiff of an amateur production with some of the worst performances I've seen in a long time. You have to see Nicola Formby's 'Diana' to believe it. She's is about as charismatic as a wet fish, and wooden to boot. There's hilarious narration from a hack who has followed their story from the start, and we jump years from one 'juicy' story to the next with a few lines about what happened in between. Everything is tabloid trash, so there isn't anything we don't know already, and the 'impersonations' are ridiculous. There's always someone around to drop a name or two, otherwise it would be hard to work who's who.

Totally awful in every way. It has it's so-bad-it's-good moments, but not enough to spare you from the tedium. How anyone could have taken this story and made it this dull is beyond me!

Before I begin, that summary does require one qualification: the genre of Royalty-dramatisations has a shockingly low average. Most of them are dreck, and a handful struggle to get to average.

The most interesting thing about The Women of Windsor is its emphasis on Fergie (Sallyanne Law) aka the Duchess of York. It doesn't play well with the title, and suggests that it was originally written and directed as a film focusing on Fergie, but re-titled to include Diana.

As a rule of thumb, films about the British Royal Family can usually be measured by the calibre of their Diana. Diana: Her True Story, for example, had a strong script and cast, but an awful Diana.

Here, the reverse is true. While much of the structure is weak - the script is soft, and some of the performances awful - Nicola Formby's Diana is spot on. She has Diana's mannerisms nailed, and delivers the performance with a rhythm that echoes Diana without actually imitating her. (A much smarter way to play real-life characters.)