Queen of Oz Review : “Team Queen? Team shit!” proclaims Princess Georgiana (Catherine Tate) and she’s not wrong.
This sorry excuse for a sitcom might have seemed a good idea for a two-minute recurring piece on her, excellent defunct sketch show but, as her ancestor might have said, we are not amused.
Of course, as you’d expect, there are one or two laughs along the way but throughout you can’t help thinking aah, that’s Nan or that’s Bridget or that’s the screamer. When pushed by her private- secretary, her PR executive or even Rebecca the Australian PM, you are just waiting for Georgiana to say “ Am I bovvered? Look at my face, am I bovvered? In fact you can almost feel Catherine herself straining not to say it.
Setting up the Princess Georgiana character with a disastrous visit to a school would, and did, make a acceptable two minute opening sketch but it was not sustainable.
Taking a fantastic sketch character like Nan and putting her into a full length feature film proved to be a step too far. Similar can be said for this disgraceful member of a fictitious Royal family. Even one episode is too long: the second was no better and a full six-part sitcom is mind numbing.
Time for her highness to abdicate.