A humdrum warm-up to tonight’s Bashir allegations
Do you remember where you were when Diana, Princess of Wales, gave her interview to Panorama? I was in a London pub, which fell silent as the Princess appeared on screen. I don’t think anyone spoke for the 90 minutes, except to gasp at some of her lines (“There were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded,” said, years later, to have been written for her by Ruby Wax).
But even if you don’t recall it, you can’t escape it now, because the methods that Martin Bashir employed to get that historic interview are now under considerable scrutiny. Channel 4 lifted the lid a month ago, with allegations that Bashir had faked documents to win the trust of the Princess and her brother, Earl Spencer. Now ITV has jumped on it with The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess, a two-part special. One suspects there is a bit of schadenfreude going on here – this was the BBC’S biggest scoop, and now its rivals have an opportunity to gleefully trash it.
The Bashir allegations, though, are all in tomorrow’s episode. The first was a scene setter about the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, with the usual suspects – former royal correspondent Jennie Bond, former
royal photographer Ken Lennox, former flunkey Paul Burrell – rolled out once more. They were all quotable, but so they should be when they’ve had 25 years to perfect their anecdotes.
We’ve heard all this stuff a thousand times: the jealousy, the affairs, the subterfuge over the Andrew Morton book, Squidgygate, Camillagate, the various figures being smuggled into Kensington Palace under a blanket on the back seat of Burrell’s car. Was there any benefit here from hearing Diana’s ex-royal protection officer, Ken Wharfe, talking about her sex life? Rosie Boycott also appeared to give things a feminist spin.
The documentary did at least feature interviews with key members of the Panorama team (not, sadly, Mr Bashir, who remains unavailable for comment but was photographed last week popping out for an Indian takeaway). I enjoyed the moment that cameraman Tony Poole, when asked to keep the date free to film the interview, initially said no because “I don’t do Sundays… that’s the day I go to the pub.” To be fair to him, he hadn’t been told by that point that Diana was the interviewee.
The pressing issue 25 years on is whether Tony Hall, later directorgeneral of the BBC, presided over a cover-up. But that’s for an independent inquiry to uncover.
Is Nigella Lawson OK? I mean, she looks as fabulous as ever, in her return to television after a threeyear absence. Her latest show, Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat (BBC Two), is as comforting as ever, the television equivalent of sinking into a heavenly bath. No, I’m talking about her food. Mashed fish fingers? A curry made of old banana skins? Keep this up and in a couple of weeks she’ll be rooting through the bins.
But Nigella’s great gift is that she can make absolutely anything feel like the most luxurious treat. The fish finger bhorta – inspired by a tweet she’d seen from the Left-wing journalist and BBC favourite Ash Sarkar – involved some onions, ginger, garlic, chilli and English mustard. I’m not convinced it would be any tastier than a fish finger sandwich in sliced white, but to watch her purr about the “gold fire” of the mustard and the “essential rhythms” of frying onions was transporting. As for those boiled banana skins: “They just go so velvety and swell and soften…”
These thrifty recipes are well-suited to lockdown, though – get your fish fingers from the corner shop, rather than braving the supermarket queues – and there were a couple of references to the current situation. Noodles with lamb shank are “a true lockdown life-enhancer”. Cooking “can be a balm in troubled times”. And, most pointedly of all: “There is more to over-ripe bananas than banana bread.”
The noodles did look delicious. But you don’t watch a Nigella series just for the recipes; you can find those online. No, you’re here to be soothed and coddled and to dream of a life in which you too have a kitchen decked out like a cocktail bar and a garden filled with twinkly fairy lights. Early shows had her eating at home with friends, but here she looked utterly content to be curled up in a chair alone, next to a very inviting drinks trolley. Expect a rush on shell pink Le Creuset.
Of course, the house is a studio; this is a fantasy life they’re selling, complete with shots of a Mary Poppins-esque London. But after the year we’ve had, a fantasy escape is exactly what we’re craving. Welcome back, Nigella. Your country needs you.
The Diana Interview ★★ Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat ★★★★