Post by Steve on Nov 2, 2023 19:04:47 GMT
Saw today's matinee and liked it.
The play doesn't take as many imaginative liberties, with plot and characterisations, as Jonathan Maitland's previous pieces, involving Boris Johnson, Jimmy Saville, etc, so it doesn't play as free and funny/chilling as those, but it's nonetheless an interesting account of the Bashir - Diana encounter, it's got something to say, and Yolanda Kettle is terrific as Diana.
Some spoilers follow. . .
Best thing about this, for me, was Yolanda Kettle's Princess Diana. Everyone else's motivations are easy to read except her enigmatic character's.
Coy but showing off, naive but calculating, open but guarded, intentionally but also unintentionally funny, dry but sly, Kettle keeps you wondering what's behind the robot coiffure and faint smile.
The head tilt, thoughtful pause, bruised blankness, incessant praise for others and lacerating self-deprecation all feel familiar from newsreels, and Kettle suggests there's a unifying vulnerability and intelligence behind all of it, if only we pay attention.
By contrast, Tibu Forte is excellent at portraying Martin Bashir's hypocritical cocktail of manipulativeness and self righteousness, but his ambition and amorality are all too easily grasped and understood.
The ideas Maitland plays with are interesting: as Forte's Bashir says, a poisoned tree can grow a tasty apple, so why is it the BBC has vowed never to show Diana's interview, nor license it for anyone else to show, when the effect may be to silence Diana all over again?
Matthew Flynn's Paul Burrell is the narrator of the play, less screechy and self-involved, more gruff, dynamic and compelling than the Burrell we saw compete in "I'm a Celebrity" on ITV.
All in all, Yolanda Kettle's Diana, and the issues raised in the play, are on point, but it would take a James Graham to flesh out the characters to enhance the entertainment value of all the interactions, to raise this show above the 3 and a half stars I feel this deserved. Worth seeing for Kettle's enigmatic Diana.
The play doesn't take as many imaginative liberties, with plot and characterisations, as Jonathan Maitland's previous pieces, involving Boris Johnson, Jimmy Saville, etc, so it doesn't play as free and funny/chilling as those, but it's nonetheless an interesting account of the Bashir - Diana encounter, it's got something to say, and Yolanda Kettle is terrific as Diana.
Some spoilers follow. . .
Best thing about this, for me, was Yolanda Kettle's Princess Diana. Everyone else's motivations are easy to read except her enigmatic character's.
Coy but showing off, naive but calculating, open but guarded, intentionally but also unintentionally funny, dry but sly, Kettle keeps you wondering what's behind the robot coiffure and faint smile.
The head tilt, thoughtful pause, bruised blankness, incessant praise for others and lacerating self-deprecation all feel familiar from newsreels, and Kettle suggests there's a unifying vulnerability and intelligence behind all of it, if only we pay attention.
By contrast, Tibu Forte is excellent at portraying Martin Bashir's hypocritical cocktail of manipulativeness and self righteousness, but his ambition and amorality are all too easily grasped and understood.
The ideas Maitland plays with are interesting: as Forte's Bashir says, a poisoned tree can grow a tasty apple, so why is it the BBC has vowed never to show Diana's interview, nor license it for anyone else to show, when the effect may be to silence Diana all over again?
Matthew Flynn's Paul Burrell is the narrator of the play, less screechy and self-involved, more gruff, dynamic and compelling than the Burrell we saw compete in "I'm a Celebrity" on ITV.
All in all, Yolanda Kettle's Diana, and the issues raised in the play, are on point, but it would take a James Graham to flesh out the characters to enhance the entertainment value of all the interactions, to raise this show above the 3 and a half stars I feel this deserved. Worth seeing for Kettle's enigmatic Diana.
