THE INTERVIEW at the Park Theatre

★★★

“Maitland’s writing and Kettle’s performance gives us a Diana that is multi-dimensional”

There is an eminent fascination with Diana, the people’s princess. More than twenty-five years after her death there are TV shows, documentaries and musicals all seeking to understand something of her, or to simply draw in the viewers. Jonathan Maitland’s original play at the Park Theatre zones in on just one interview between the princess and a reporter.

The interview in question is Princess Diana’s 1995 BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir. A watershed moment, the innocuous title ‘An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales’ belied the explosive revelations made by the princess about her relationship with her husband Prince Charles, the Queen, and the rest of the royal family as well as shocking revelations about her own mental health. It was explosive stuff, hailed at the time by the BBC as ‘the scoop of a generation’. But in 2021 the BBC has vowed never to broadcast the interview again or license it to others due to Bashir’s foul-play in securing the interview.

Maitland’s play, under Michael Fentiman’s direction, explores the events leading up to the interview from the perspective of both parties, attempting to leave us asking whether this really was a one-sided manipulation on the part of Bashir, or whether Diana had more agency than critics today would have you believe.

Diana is well written and charismatically portrayed by Yolanda Kettle. With recent portrayals from Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki in The Crown to Kristen Stewart in Spencer, there is no shortage of Diana content for comparison, and whilst it’s difficult to make a Diana feel fresh, Kettle does so with humour, emphasising the princess’s lighter side. She makes jokes about the music she chooses to play to avoid her conversation with Bashir being picked up by bugging devices as being about a woman who murders her adulterous husband, and has a great retort about why her sister said she should go through with the wedding despite reservations. Maitland’s writing and Kettle’s performance gives us a Diana that is multi-dimensional – light-hearted yet deeply hurt by her husband, strong-willed yet insecure, paranoid yet with good reason.

“the lights fade, and the audience groans, having been teased with what would have been the highlight of the evening”

Sami Fendall’s costume design is peak 90s with Diana’s ‘off-duty princess’ styling of belted dark rinse Levi 501s and a tucked in white shirt. Her short bouffant crop looks almost comically voluminous but is actually pretty spot on when compared to the stills from the interview itself.

Tibu Fortes as Martin Bashir is incredibly sincere and despite his refrain that he and Diana are the same, outsiders, in many ways his character stands in stark contrast. Whereas Diana is emotionally complex, Bashir seems to have only one motivation – to score the interview of a generation by doing whatever he needs to do to get it. Maitland’s choice to have Bashir use the same story about his dead brother to endear himself to Diana and her Butler is Machiavellian and makes us wonder whether he even had a brother at all. Act II focuses in on Bashir through the editing process and the fallout does him few favours. However, the suggestion that the fraudulent methods used to get the interview were the start of a long line of truth doctoring that stretched forward through Blair’s ‘dodgy dossier’ to Trump was a ham-fisted stretch.

It’s also an odd choice to have much of the first act narrated by Diana’s infamous butler, Paul Burrell. His character is almost totally redundant, other than perhaps to show that even those close to Diana were looking for ways to elevate themselves at her expense. A much more interesting aide is Luciana, wittily played by Naomi Frederick, perhaps a press or media secretary or just a close confidante who comes from the same world as Diana but seems to understand what she’s going through.

The second act does let this piece down, swapping conversations between the princess and the reporter for dry ethical conversations between the broadcaster and his BBC bosses. It starts to look up when the Kettle as Diana re-emerges after a long absence and converses with Bashir as if from beyond the grave, arguing that despite the foul-play, those were words she wanted the world to hear. Chairs appear carried by other cast members and you start to hope we will see some of the interview recreated live. But then the lights fade, and the audience groans, having been teased with what would have been the highlight of the evening – Diana live and self-scripted as she intended to be.

THE INTERVIEW at the Park Theatre

Reviewed on 1st November 2023

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Pamela Raith

Previously reviewed at this venue:

It’s Headed Straight Towards Us | ★★★★★ | September 2023

Sorry We Didn’t Die At Sea | ★★½ | September 2023

The Garden Of Words | ★★★ | August 2023

Bones | ★★★★ | July 2023

Paper Cut | ★★½ | June 2023

Leaves of Glass | ★★★★ | May 2023

The Beach House | ★★★ | February 2023

Winner’s Curse | ★★★★ | February 2023

The Elephant Song | ★★★★ | January 2023

Rumpelstiltskin | ★★★★★ | December 2022

Wickies | ★★★ | December 2022

Pickle | ★★★ | November 2022

The Interview

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★★★

“The score pulses like blood from a severed major artery”

As we wander into the dimly lit auditorium, there is a music box centre stage bathed in sepulchral light. It chimes like a nursery rhyme, but the tone has an ominous quality. This shadow of unease is darkened by the slowly rotating axe that replaces the ballet dancer that would normally ornament the music box. We feel that something is not quite right.

“Lizzie” – billed as a True Crime Rock Musical – tells the story of Lizzie Borden; a complex character who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe in the late summer of 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts. Written by Tim Maner, Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt, it bursts onto the stage with the force of a recklessly wielded hatchet. The score pulses like blood from a severed major artery. It is exciting and powerful. Yet we know that something is not quite right.

The problem lies in the source material. Lizzie Borden passed into American folklore via the widespread publicity her trial received. Inevitably this gives rise to speculation, half-truths and fabrication but the plain fact is that Borden was acquitted. The police investigation was a shambles and criticised for its lack of diligence, and Borden’s testimonies were suspect to say the least. Contradictory answers to questioning, changing alibis and dubious statements all failed to bring a conviction. Although a free woman, she still lived with the burden of being the prime suspect of a murder that was never solved.

“This is definitely quirky and sassy, and it will get the blood flowing freely”

William Whelton’s production, however, leaves us in no doubt. Lizzie Borden comes across as a pretty cold-blooded murderer. There are attempts to get the audience on her side, but we are left just as cold. Alleged sexual and emotional abuse are revealed. Oppression and fear are used in mitigation, yet we still never root for her. Lauren Drew handles the material exceedingly well, giving as much of a human face as possible to a soul-less and manipulative personality. And the frequent doses of comedy help the bitter taste go down. She is aided and abetted throughout by her sister Emma (played with gusto by Shekinah McFarlane), and by her winking, all-knowing maid, Bridget (Mairi Barclay). Maiya Quansah-Breed completes the quartet as Lizzie’s friend, lover, ally and accuser. A complex journey simultaneously driven and hindered by a romantic sub plot.

Yet the show manages to rise above its drawbacks on the strength of its bombast and spectacularity. Almost sung through, “Lizzie” is in effect a concept album thrust onto the stage. More Prog Rock than the Punk it advertises, it therefore has a richness buried deep into the hardcore backing. All four performers complement this with stunning vocals and electrifying commitment. Rachel Tansey’s costume places the cast in a nineteenth century New England backwater, which jars, until they regenerate into the modern rock chick look that the music dictates. Andrew Exeter’s lighting is impressive, mixing intimate, Gothic hues with epic stadium rock-concert flourishes. There is plenty to applaud, and the audience are certainly on their feet doing that in abundance.

Yet we are ultimately brought back to the nagging sensation that something is not quite right. The message is perturbing. The girl power mantel doesn’t sit well on a story that is angled to let a murderess walk away scot-free. The attempts at comedy don’t always sit comfortably either. We come away not sure how we are supposed to feel. But at least we feel something. Our heartbeats have been raised quite a few beats per minute. This is definitely quirky and sassy, and it will get the blood flowing freely. Not as freely, thankfully, as Lizzie Borden’s victims.

THE INTERVIEW at the Park Theatre

★★★

“Maitland’s writing and Kettle’s performance gives us a Diana that is multi-dimensional”

“the lights fade, and the audience groans, having been teased with what would have been the highlight of the evening”