Press views: Diana the Princess

Choreographer Peter Schaufuss has transformed the life of Princess Diana into a ballet, being performed at the Palace Theatre in Manchester.

THE INDEPENDENT - LYNDSEY WINSHIP

While Diana the Princess, created by Danish dance impresario Peter Schaufuss, is indeed pretty bad, it does have moments of comic genius. The problem is it's hard to tell whether they're intentional or not.

Zara Deakin and Sean Ganley danced Diana and Charles

British-born dancer Zara Deakin plays Diana, and to her credit, avoids crass impersonation in favour of well-observed inflections of movement.

The choreography is simplistic, uninspired and clunky, but Schaufuss doesn't call this ballet, rather a dance show, and it seems to operate within its own rules.

It's not quite as kitsch as a Charles and Diana wedding plate, but you can't help wondering if we have here the makings of a future camp classic.

THE TIMES - RUSSELL JENKINS

A rapturous audience booed the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles, "that other lady", off the stage at the end of the British premiere of the ballet.

They cheered the lithe, leotard-clad figure of Zara Deakin, who plays the Princess, with enough enthusiasm to prompt gloom in Buckingham Palace about the future of the monarchy.

Mrs Parker Bowles appears as a whip-wielding dominatrix in jodhpurs flaying the Prince - a cold-hearted manipulator - with her riding crop.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH - ISMENE BROWN

I don't think Camilla and Charles will like it.

They won't like being chortled at in oral sex, or being booed at the curtain call. But then the Queen and Prince Philip were booed worse.

The no-nonsense Mancunians simply took Schaufuss' earnest creation completely the wrong way, and relished it as a classic, if twisted panto, complete with wicked mothers-in-law and mistresses.

Of the "real", chubby, nervous Lady Di there is no trace in this wearying icon, whose undignified TV interview was replayed through most of the second nauseating act.

The audience exploded in giggles and Diana: The Panto Princess was assured a howling success.