Viral comic who mocks royals to play the King in new C4 musical

A COMEDIAN who has mocked the Royal family’s colonial connections has been cast as the King in a new musical about the Duke of York.

British-zimbabwean Munya Chawawa has become an online celebrity with short satirical videos joking about issues such as the Royal family’s clumsy race relations and excessive wealth from imperial plunder.

Now he will play the King in Channel 4’s Prince Andrew: The Musical, which will also feature Margaret Thatcher played by a drag queen. Under chief content officer Ian Katz, the channel ‘s recent output includes a documentary about “massive” penises.

Described as a show that will “let rip at an institution that would perhaps prefer us to forget about all this”, the TV musical will take aim at the key relationships and controversies of the Duke’s life, including his divorce and his 2019 Newsnight interview

Chawawa has previously played the King in his sketches, which have included a joke implying royal figures told the Duchess of Sussex to “go back to Africa”. He will star alongside Harry Enfield, who will play former prime minister Tony Blair, and drag queen Baga Chipz as Baroness Thatcher.

The musical was written by Kieran Hodgson, who will play the title role. He said: “The story of Andrew is tragedy and farce rolled into one, so why not add ‘musical’ for good measure?”

Channel 4 has been embroiled in a row with the Government after Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, suggested it should be privatised.

It is currently run as a subsidiary state broadcaster, technically owned by the state through a corporation overseen by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, but raises its own funds by advertising.

Rishi Sunak reportedly has no plans to privatise the channel.