Park Theatre’s returning playwright Jonathan Maitland explains why, for his latest, he has trained his gaze on the people’s princess

There have been many recent representations of Princess Diana, from the royal chronicling – which takes liberty
with history – of The Crown, to an even more brazenly (maybe parodically) make-believe account of her life, named Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story.

Local playwright Jonathan Maitland, a regular writer for Finsbury Park’s Park Theatre, has decided to take the subject of Diana seriously – something, he says, which has been missing from both stage and screen “despite her being a hugely significant figure in our recent history.”

“She was like a feather trying to battle against the wind: an individual trying to assert her own autonomy, caught in the competing cross currents of her own desires and duties and the expectations of others,” Jonathan says. “Plus of course it’s easier to find an audience if you are writing about someone that famous.”

Jokingly, he adds: “That’s not as cynical as it sounds: there are plenty of famous people I could have written about, but I was drawn to Diana because of her link with Martin Bashir. We were colleagues for many years when we were reporters together on ITV’s Tonight programme.”

The Interview – which, as the name suggests, homes in on the infamous interview of 1995 – stars Tibu Fortes as journalist Martin Bashir and Yolanda Kettle as Diana.

“The accepted narrative is that Martin Bashir manipulated Diana,” says Jonathan. “Which he did, to a certain extent. But I wanted to go a bit deeper than that. Could it be that she manipulated him, too?”

Jonathan’s play questions the fact that this piece of history has been written off, delving into the questions of why and how the interview came into existence. It’s not the first time he has taken a historic conversation as his subject, with Geoffrey Howe’s famous 1990 speech for Margaret Thatcher forming the basis of his 2015 play Dead Sheep.

“If the speech or conversation is historic – a turning point, or something people talk about decades later – I’m always fascinated in how it came about,” says Jonathan.

Adapting from history comes with its challenges, however. “In terms of writing and characterisation, you don’t want to canonise Diana or make her into a caricature,” Jonathan explains. “She wasn’t Mother Teresa with great hair. It was more complex than that. As far as portraying her on stage, that’s one for the terrific actor who’s playing her. But it’s safe to say it’s a challenge. You don’t want a Dead Ringers style impersonation. You want to see a real person that the audience believes in. Having said that, you do have to capture something about her – her voice, mannerisms or physicality – so that it strikes a chord of recognition in the audience. It’s a delicate balance.”

On why the interview is relevant today, Jonathan says: “You barely fessed up to a migraine in those days, let alone postnatal depression. The stuff she talked about then is just as important and relevant now as it was then. Which makes Prince William and the BBC’s decision to effectively ban the interview highly questionable – in some people’s eyes.”

And why was the stage the right place for this story? “There is something about a living, breathing play in a theatre, which reaches the parts other art forms can’t.”

‘The Interview’ will run at Park Theatre from 27 October until 25 November. To find out more visit: parktheatre.co.uk/whats-on/the-interview

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