The Queen and I

As others here have said with such a cast it should have been so much better. Only for rainy afternoons when there is simply nothing else on... better to seek out the superb series The Windsors.

This film is meant to be comedic and it achieves that! Yes there is an underlying political statement but previous reviews have taken it too seriously... Lighten up enjoy life!

A movie that is intended for family entertainment, and it achieves that very well with a fun cast and a very British style of comedy.

A refreshing tell on the real-life situations that people are so eager to hide from. Touched on so many topics and situations which are causing issues today. Great watch with many ups and downs and a great feel-good ending.

The book was first published around 1992/3, so quite what the point is of filming it 25 years later, I fail to see, and I wish whoever was responsible hadn't bothered.

Puerile jokes about Charles's ears, the (late) Queen Mother's fondness for horse racing, the (late) Princess Margaret's fondness for cigarettes and gin & tonic - it's all here, and it really doesn't work.

Now top off the whole sorry confection with references to the Princess of Wales still being alive and living abroad somewhere with Dodi Fayed and you start to see how crushingly unfunny and indeed irrelevant this is. It is truly awful.

I've tried to imagine how, or indeed if this might actually have been funny at the time it was written, when some of the characters were still alive and would have meant something to the readers, but I just can't see it.

Not even the excellent cast can save it - it is the biggest turkey of this Christmas.