The weekend on television Gerard O’donovan A poignant account of the phenomenon that was Diana
There’s been a lot of material aired already around the 20th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales – not all of it as considerate as some would have liked. Diana, 7 Days (Sunday, BBC One) was a documentary that skilfully balanced the private grief of those closest to the princess with the extraordinary tidal wave of public emotion that swept Britain, recapturing one of the strangest, most memorable and tragic weeks of modern times.
Like ITV’S recent Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, at the heart of this film were interviews given by Princes William and Harry recalling the trauma of their mother’s death and how they coped with it at the age of 15 and 12, respectively. Again, no one could be in any doubt as to the bitterness they felt regarding the press’s hounding of their mother. Or the pain of having to grieve in the public spotlight.
But the scope of Diana, 7 Days was wider, hanging on a loose day-by-day structure, an analysis of why the princess was so globally popular, and how the unparalleled public response to her death left the Royal family, the government of the day, and the British media scrambling to catch up with the mood of the country.
This was the main focus of Harry Singer’s documentary. So much so, in parts that it felt slightly like a rehash of Peter Morgan’s hit film The Queen, with Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell on hand to remind us how the monarchy’s response had been so carefully media-managed. But, again, it was the extraordinary riptide of public emotion, and its transformative effect that sang out loudest. As when Diana’s sister, Lady Sarah Mccorquodale, recalled how her family’s hopes for a small private funeral were instantly reconsidered on seeing so many mourners packing the A40 when the princess’s body was brought back from Paris.
Watching the footage of vast crowds gathering and laying flowers outside Buckingham and Kensington Palaces, and lining the route of the funeral cortege, brought fully back to mind the unique, electric strangeness of that week. Poignant memories for those who lived through it; context for those who might wonder at how one woman’s death could so entirely turn a country on its head.
If you had to choose just one film to sum up the phenomenon that was Diana’s life, and the greater phenomenon of her death, Diana, 7 Days certainly got closer than most.
Casting is such a tricky thing. Especially with adaptations. Get it wrong (say, John Hannah as the first Rebus) and a potentially great series can sink like a stone. Get it spot on, as the BBC has by casting Tom Burke as the lead in Strike:
The Cuckoo’s Calling (Sunday, BBC One) and it can be the beginning of a fond and long-lasting communion between series, actor and audience.
Like millions of others, I rushed to read The Cuckoo’s Calling when its publishers “accidentally” revealed – by megaphone – that poorly selling debut crime writer Robert Galbraith was none other than Harry Potter author JK Rowling in disguise. So I was keen to see how the BBC would bring to the screen the larger than life, oddly monikered lead character, Cormoran Strike – a bear-like, chaotic and rather damaged (literally so, having lost a leg in Afghanistan) ex-military policeman turned private detective.
Judging from this opening episode, adapter Ben Richards has remained faithful, even respectful (Rowling commands an executive producer credit after all), to the book. The story of a supermodel whose supposed suicide could have been murder was slow to get going but, really, that was almost incidental. The meat here was in the characters.
Burke was instantly magnetic, his shaggy moon-like features and shambling figure easily convincing us that a broke, underemployed
P I with attitude really could keep a two-room office in the hyperexpensive heart of Central London. Holliday Grainger (it could so easily have been Hermione) also had an instant impact as the aptly named Robin, the bright, whip-smart new temp who brought a controlling ying to the yang of Strike’s pell-mell crime-detecting charisma. London pulled off its usual trick of looking gritty and beautiful.
All in all, it made for a very promising start. As with the book, I’m not sure I would have been so drawn to it if it hadn’t been for Rowling’s name. But such is the wonder of branding. Now that I’m here I can see myself sticking around for the long term.
Diana, 7 Days
Strike: The Cuckoo’s Calling