DIANA AND THE DECEIVER
Jonathan Maitland did a superb play for this theatre about Thatcher and Howe, “Dead Sheep”, and one on Jimmy Savile which was far more telling and cathartic than the TV version. Now he turns his attention to another story: the Diana interview of 1995 and subsequent late exposure of the manipulation and forgery by Martin Bashir, which achieved it for the BBCs Panorama in the teeth of sly bids from Oprah. Barbara Walters and – well, just about everyone.
Maitland seems to be stirred by Prince William’s ruling , and the BBCs, that it shouldn’t ever be screened again: in the second half he suggests this is a kind of further silencing and cancelling of the poor woman. Though the irony of this suggestion doesn’t strike him in staging it all for national appraisal. He uses her key lines plus, from good sources, glimpses of lines which weren’t in the final edit. We see editor Hewlett anxious, almost appalled, fearing she would give too much about her own lovers and worrying about how far Bashir is producing her.
Maitland is an interesting theatremaker and journalist, and with the flapdoodle which The Crown deals out, it is salutary to see this bare- stage serious portrayal of some of the oiliest , craftiest, most disastrous journalistic flattery ever executed, and the naive BBC vanity that swallowed the hook.
. The first half is almost a radio play, unadorned talk: we hear a clip of Charles’ admission of adultery to Dimbleby and then watch Tibu Fortes’ eerily lookalike Bashir visiting ,repeatedly, the bored, anxiously self -absorbed and paranoid Princess. The equally oily Pandarus and narrator is Paul Burrell. Yolanda Kettle gives a convincing Diana, though without the vivacity, and will not heed her only sensible friend Luciana – a composite I think of several – even when, reluctantly accepting that secret recording is happening, the wise friend urges Diana to be forgiving and reconciliatory, not vengeful.
Maitland knew and worked with Bashir, has felt – he says – the flattering ways himself, and picked up from various sources nuggets about Diana. Like her multiple physical discarding of mobile phones once someone who displeased her had the number. It is quite painful to listen to Bashir’s flattery and outrageous lines about how he – as an Asian at the BBC – is a parallel victim to her being a “sweet kid from Norfolk” adrift in the Royal family: two outsiders. Her constant worry about whether people are a bit tired of her is aggravated by Bashir’s forgeries and his firm agreement that she is spied on even by loyal Patrick Jephson and that “they” are out to silence or kill her. When she hesitates, he is a pure Mephistophiles murmuring that yes, he too had doubted but “you have taught me about moral courage”.
There are moments of BBC excitement and hesitation, including the disgraceful shedding of the poor graphic artist who innocently forged evidence of her supposed betrayers being paid by he press. It rises to a sense of urgency as producers fear that Marmaduke Hussey the BBC chairman will find out, and his wife a lady-in-waiting report it to the Queen. Most of us probably know all this now, but it does no harm for a new generation to learn it.
Near the end it is mooted that there is a greater truth in imaginings such as this, and maybe there is. The stage- Bashir defends himself in the second, , often spookily impressionistic act where figures of hard truth and of “narrative” argue over what is real, and create a deliberate sense that maybe this interview, followed by the internet age, has crippled our ability to trust anyone, government, doctors, scientists, documentsrists. But maybe, he says – as with artists like Picasso, Gill,Michael Jackson or I suppose Gary Glitter – , we should be less preoccupied with the flawed behaviour , and concentrate on the art or interview rather than the disgrace. “Be allowed to taste the healthy fruit of the poisoned tree”.
And that’s a whole other play, and question.
BOx office parktheatre.co.uk to 25 nov
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