Was Diana’s flamboyant stepmother really so awful?
Was Raine, Countess Spencer really a “barbed wire powder puff ” who merited the nickname “Acid Raine”? Very probably. Yet she was also a huge-haired force of nature whom you couldn’t help admiring.
Gossipy documentary Princess Diana’s “Wicked” Stepmother (Channel 4) traced the volatile relationship between Diana, Princess of Wales and her formidable stepmother, who died aged 87 last October after telling friends: “I’ve got a little bit of cancer, dear.”
We heard how Raine rose from relatively humble origins – she was the daughter of romantic novelist Barbara Cartland (who in my head, has become inextricably entangled with Matt Lucas’s Little Britain spoof, dictating novels to a long-suffering secretary while lying on a chaise longue with a bichon frise and box of chocolates) – to become a Debutante of the Year, high society hostess, trailblazing politician and no-nonsense businesswoman.
She was a divisive figure, doted on by Johnnie Spencer the 8th Earl, but loathed by his children, who would chant “Raine, Raine go away”. At Althorp, the Spencer family’s ancestral home, Raine horrified traditionalists by double-glazing the windows, covering everything in garish gold gilt and opening a gift shop. Diana ended up pushing Raine down the stairs like a scene from Dynasty.
The film was knowingly soapy and salacious. I could have done without the cutaways to lacy bras and rumpled bedsheets whenever sex was mentioned, and the presence of tiresome commentators such as butler Paul Burrell was unnecessary. Royal biographer Penny Junor rather unfortunately described Prince Charles and Diana’s marriage as a “car crash”. Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes was excellent value, as ever, wryly noting on her marriages: “Nobody gets to be a countess three times by accident.”
This rollicking yarn even had a twist in the tale. A late reconciliation saw Raine become one of Diana’s closest confidantes. After all, they had turbulent, intertwined lives, taking in marriage and divorce, trauma and tragedy.
There has been a glut of programmes to mark 20 years since the death of Diana, including another Channel 4 offering, the ghoulishly misguided Diana: In Her Own Words shown last Sunday. This one, despite the tacky trimmings, was rather more insightful: ultimately less about Diana and more of a portrait of Raine in all her extraordinary glory.
Whipping with a belt. Curtains set ablaze. A vicious beating with a microphone stand. No, not an average episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show but an edge-of-the-sofa fight scene at the climax of the third instalment of Top of the Lake: China
Girl (BBC Two).
When detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss, armed with nothing but a pained expression and shaky Kiwi accent) faced her old nemesis Al Parker (David Wenham), it exploded into an epic scrap.
Robin could have easily evaded her wheelchair-bound assailant, of course, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as cathartic. Their struggle reminded me of Happy Valley’s brutal brawl between James Norton and Sarah Lancashire, portraying the ugly reality of violence and how exhausting it must be to attempt murder with your bare hands.
If only the rest of Top of the Lake was so visceral. As the second series of Jane Campion’s Antipodean crime drama reached its halfway point, the investigation gathered momentum but was weighed down by cartoonish characters, over-wrought dialogue and a case hinging on coincidences.
Griffin pursued her theory that murdered Asian sex worker “China Girl” was a surrogate. Elsewhere came the queasy revelation that Griffin’s sidekick Miranda (Gwendoline Christie) and her bearlike boss Adrian (Clayton Jacobson) were an item. They made an unlikely couple, with a six-inch height difference and a 20-year age gap. I couldn’t decide if this development was ludicrously random or rather sweet.
Meanwhile, just about every male character continued to be an irredeemable misogynist. Cops were either bullies or stalker-ish sexpests. Fertility doctors were callous. Even the security guards watching Griffin and Parker’s fight on CCTV were vile voyeurs. Campion might want to smash the patriarchy, but there’s no need to whack viewers over the head with her views quite so crudely.
Princess Diana’s “Wicked” Stepmother
Top of the Lake: China Girl