‘Queen Of Oz’: BBC Sets June UK Premiere Date For New Catherine Tate Comedy

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The BBC has set a June UK premiere date for ‘Queen Of Oz‘, a new comedy series starring Catherine Tate as a party girl royal who is shipped off to a land down under…

Princess Georgiana, aka Georgie, is the spare to the British throne but her party-girl lifestyle and constant public scandals threaten the monarchy’s future.

In an effort to get her as far away from London as possible, and at the same time, hoping to prevent Australia from leaving the Commonwealth, Georgie’s parents send her off to Australia to become their Queen, along with her new staff – Director of Communications Zoe, Private Secretary Bernard, Head of Security Officer Marc, Personal Assistant Matthew, Lady In Waiting Anabel, Master of the Household Weiwei.

“She’s a reluctant Queen as she really thought she was going to live out her life going to parties, not do much of anything or have any responsibility,” commented Tate. “So she gets a very rude awakening getting shipped off to Australia as their newly-crowned Queen. She’s very difficult, very hard to work for and doesn’t make it easy for anyone. She’s spoilt, entitled and deeply unpleasant which of course makes her a great character to play. She does evolve somewhat over the series but at her core she’s fun and she’s anarchic. I think when you’re playing someone like that, you don’t need people to love her, you don’t really need anyone to like her even, you just need them to laugh at her.”

As Georgie arrives in her new home, a welcome reception is Georgie’s first public appearance in Australia – where an offensive faux pas from the jetlagged new Queen makes the night go from bad to worse…

The series is based on an original idea by Catherine Tate and Borga Dorta and is produced in association with ABC Australia. It is a Lingo Pictures production written by Catherine Tate and Jeff Gutheim.

“The genesis of this project had nothing to do with myself or Jeff, we wrote it but it wasn’t our idea,” said Tate in an inteview with the BBC. “That credit goes to a Canadian producer called Borga Dorta who got in touch with me to say, ‘I really love your work and I’ve got this idea about a minor member of a fictitious royal family, who gets sent over to Canada to become their Queen.’ I really liked it, so we all worked up a treatment, went to Toronto and pitched it to Canadian TV studios. It was called, wait for it, Queen Of Canada! While we were in a café between meetings I said, ‘You know what, I think this might be better situated to Australia. Plus, Queen of Oz is a much better title.’ So that’s how it came about. That’s a very long-winded way of saying it wasn’t my idea. We’re still waiting on hearing back from the Canadians but to be fair, they did say they usually take a long time to say yes…”

Alongside Tate, the series stars Jenna Owen (‘Joe vs. Carole’) as Director of Communications Zoe, Robert Coleby (‘A Place to Call Home’, ‘Patrol Boat’) as Private Secretary Bernard, Rob Collins (‘RFDS’, ‘Mystery Road’, ‘Extraction’) as Head of Security Officer Marc Kemarre, William McKenna (‘Nowhere Boys’, ‘The Messenger’) as Personal Assistant Matthew, Niky Wardley (‘The Catherine Tate Show’, ‘Hard Cell’, ‘Doctor Who’ – Big Finish Audio) as Lady In Waiting Anabel, and Anthony Brandon Wong (‘The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions’, ‘The Family Law’) as Master of the Household Weiwei.

Along with writing and starring, Tate executive produce the series, alongside producer Michele Bennett (‘Mr Inbetween’) and executive producer for Lingo, Helen Bowden (‘The Secrets She Keeps’, ‘Lambs of God’). Christiaan Van Vuuren (‘Dom And Adrian’, ‘A Sunburnt Christmas’) directs.

‘Queen Of Oz‘ Season 1 UK premiere date is Friday, 16th June 2023 at 9.30pm on BBC One and iPlayer.