User reviews

Would've hit the mark if it was written for todays world, but its 25 years too late!

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.

This could have been so much better. The book written by the late Sue Townsend. I've read the book on numerous occasions over the last 20 years and it's not at all how I pictured it. Where was Prince Phillip? Why was he excluded? It seemed very rushed. Johnny Vegas casting as Spiggy was about the only decent thing.

Such a shame. Sorry Sue.

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.

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!

This could have been so much better. Most of the book seemed to have been overlooked. It seemed like they only took the basic premise of the novel with only a couple of threads remaining but those was drastically trimmed to leave a totally too short running time. Would have more sense to make a 6 part half hour series. Waste of an excellent cast

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.

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.

Funny, heartwarming and well played! Being a republican I still feel for the royal family and their everyday adventures through out the whole movie.

I can only agree with the other comments here: It is situated 20+ years ago without any frame of reference to place the watcher in the time period. Many of the characters are now dead, and unknown to many watchers (Princess Margaret, Queen Mother) etc. Jokes about Princess Di dating Dodi Fayed are obviously not funny in hindsight. It portrays everyone in a nasty manner, 'the Royals' and 'the Poor' are equally shown to be lazy/backbiting/worthless people. Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. Watch the brilliant 'The Windors' TV series instead which pokes fun at today's Royals in a playful and very funny way.

If you've read the book then you'll be dying to see the film. Well don't. Apart from the annoying David Walliams the films a big letdown. Quite short and the actors haven't really been made up to resemble the royals. The book had so much depth and humour. This was made for kids. So you can see how much of a wet fart the film is by comparison. Perhaps see the film first the read the book.