Lives in Di-lemma

DIANA AND I

IT’S been pretty impossible to miss the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.

There have been documentaries and news stories galore, and everyone has been taken back to that time, remembering where they were when they heard of the tragedy.

And what it felt like as the country prepared for the funeral.

This one-off drama goes back to that moment, and follows the stories of four very different people in the immediate aftermath to see how they were affected by that remarkable week or so in British history. Jack (Nico Mirallegro) is a shy 19-year-old only child, whose beloved mum dies from cancer the same night as Diana. Estranged from his dad (Neil Morrissey) he turns to a neighbour for help with his grief.

Mary (Tamsin Greig) is a Glaswegian florist, struggling with her business and her elderly mother (Gemma Jones) who has Alzheimer’s.

With the help of her adoring pal Gordy (John Gordon Sinclair) she decides to take a bus full of flowers down to the capital to sell before the funeral.

Michael (Laurie Davidson) is a junior reporter on his honeymoon in Paris, who finds himself working on the story of the century with Fleet Street hack Laura (Tuppence Middleton), but possibly at the expense of his marriage.

And Yasmin (Kiran Sonia Sawar) is unhappily married to a bullying businessman who’s deeply in debt. When the bailiffs come to take her television away while she’s watching the coverage, she decides to flee to London to pay her respects and see her Uncle Zaheer (Roshan Seth).

This is a very different way to look at Diana’s death and the impact she had on ordinary people’s lives – and it proves a warm, clever and entertaining drama.

CASHING IN Mary and Gordy BBC2, 9pm