Princess Georgiana is a hard-partying, red-headed spare to the throne of England whose unbecoming antics are catnip to the tabloids. Her co-creator (with Borga Dorter), Catherine Tate, assures us that she is not based on anyone in particular.
When the princess projectile-vomits over a child monarchist during a school visit while profoundly hungover, the king and queen (who, unlike the rest of us, naturally feel that this is not the deserved fate of any child monarchist) decide they’ve finally had enough of their wayward offspring. They vacate the throne of Australia so that she can be sent there as punishment – a last shot at redemption for “the pisspot princess”.
Whether this is all constitutionally sound need not detain us here. It is the confidently delivered premise of Tate’s new venture (co-written with Jeff Gutheim), a six-part fish-out-of-water comedy called Queen of Oz.
Stripped of her usual staff, Georgiana arrives in Australia with only her moronic lady-in-waiting Anabel (Niky Wardley) – who is overwhelmed by the concept of it being summer in January – and urbane private secretary Bernard (Robert Coleby) – who has agreed to come out of retirement as a favour to her parents and because he loathes his wife – to support her. Her new staff include a foetal blond communications officer called Zoe (Jenna Owen), whose greatest attribute is that she can get Georgiana an introduction to all three Hemsworth brothers; a dangerously inexperienced assistant called Matthew (William McKenna), whose nerves aren’t helped by Georgiana’s fixation on his “tiny doll hands”; and waspish Weiwei Weng (Anthony Brandon Wong) who – entirely understandably – hates her.
As we move through various set pieces and disasters – starting fires with her discarded cigarettes, the wrong portrait being printed on bank notes, accidentally killing a kangaroo, dealing with instructions from her parents to get married, and so on – her implacable head of security Marc (Rob Collins) is the only one who remains unmoved by Georgiana’s monstrous displays. Unless you count ruthless Australian media mogul Richard Steele (David Roberts) who gladly welcomes them as grist to his ratings-pursuing mill. I’m sure he’s not based on anyone, either.
And Georgiana is truly and refreshingly monstrous. Tate has a known gift for playing borderline sociopaths, of course. Her permanently raging royal is a middle-aged version of the comedian’s magnificently stroppy teen character Lauren ‘Am I bovvered?’ Cooper crossed with savage Nan and Princess Margaret. She is not a shrill harpy, which we are so often asked to accept as awful female characters – she is a horror born, though her upbringing as the overlooked child has aggravated her natural inclinations, and it’s so much more fun this way. Georgiana is a one-and-a-half note part but played so well (even allowing for its bespoke nature) and with such utter conviction that it feels like much more.
Queen of Oz is a solidly written show – well-constructed, lots of callbacks within each episode, and nicely drawn relationships among the main and peripheral characters. What it is not, to me at least, is spectacularly funny. But the whole remains, nevertheless, extraordinarily watchable. Tate is such a presence, her support – particularly from Collins and Coleby – is so good that you can watch in happy fascination and enjoy the gags that land as cheering bonuses. It’s probably not quite what they were aiming for, but it remains an intriguing trick all the same.
Queen of Oz aired on BBC Two and is available on BBC iPlayer.
