Nevertheless, recreate it The Crown<\/em> does, and it is the main focus of episode eight. In episode seven we saw how, through various means that have since been proven fraudulent<\/a>, journalist Martin Bashir had convinced Diana to tell her side of the story.<\/p>\n We open this episode in a room full of men in grey suits, a BBC board of governors meeting, a low hush burbling around the room. That is, before \u2018Duke\u2019 Hussey (played by Richard Cordery) strides in to accost the current Director General of the Beeb, John Birt (Nicholas Gleaves). \u00a0He was a veteran of WW2, turned newspaper manager, and as shown in the drama, his wife was a senior lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II<\/a>. Birt, a Liverpudlian raised in post-war Britain, was Director General of the BBC from 1992\u20132000, and had been tasked with pushing \u2018Auntie\u2019 into the digital era.<\/p>\n As we\u2019ve seen over the course of the first seven episodes, the 1990s saw the Crown as an institution considering its role and relevance in Britain \u2013\u00a0and it seems that the era had a similar effect on the BBC<\/a>. The Crown<\/em> tells this story by juxta-positioning Hussey, and his regard for the BBC\u2019s Reithian principles of education<\/a>, against John Birt\u2019s zeal for modernity.<\/p>\n The issue that brings them into direct confrontation in this episode is the Beeb\u2019s representation of the royal family. The Queen, who is portrayed as regarding the BBC as fondly as Hussey regards the royals, suggests that upgrading her television to receive satellite channels would be \u201clike me becoming a catholic.\u201d On the set plays an episode of David Attenborough\u2019s Life on Earth,<\/em> which had been a jewel in the BBC\u2019s crown<\/a> for more than a decade. At that time she has (as Hussey informs us in the episode) granted the BBC a new royal charter<\/a>, a formal grant issued by the monarch that sets out the arrangements for the governance of the\u00a0corporation.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in another scene, we learn from on-screen Martin Bashir that Diana has agreed to be interviewed<\/a>, and has chosen 5 November 1995 as the date they will record. The significance of her choice, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot<\/a>, is not lost on anyone. Many parallels are made in this episode between Diana\u2019s \u2018explosive\u2019 act, and the traitors who plotted to blow up king and government in 1605. At one point, a password given at a Brighton hotel is \u2018Catesby\u2019, a reference to the lead plotter; while Bashir draws on the plotters\u2019 hesitation to calm some last-minute nerves shown by Diana. \u201cThey were unsuccessful,\u201d the Princess replies. \u201cThey were hung, drawn and quartered<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Prince William and Princess Diana\u2019s relationship continues to be tested as Diana suggests their phone calls may be bugged. In 2021, in response to an independent inquiry into the Panorama<\/em> interview, William shared a brief insight into his memories<\/a> of the situation, saying that the deceit had \u201ccontributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.\u201d<\/p> \u201cDo you think she\u2019ll be critical of the monarchy?\u201d John Birt asks in the episode, weighing up the ethics of allowing Diana such a platform. \u201cCritical of Charles at least,\u201d replies Steve Hewlett, who was the editor of Panorama<\/em>. \u201cShe\u2019s doing it with us because she feels safe, understood and protected,\u201d Bashir adds, another ironic nod from the show towards Bashir\u2019s methods.<\/a> (In 2021, the real Birt called Bashir \u201ca serial liar on an industrial scale\u201d.<\/a>) Ultimately Birt decides to quietly approve the interview; former BBC governor Sir Richard Eyre has since cited Birt\u2019s desire to get the BBC\u2019s news department \u201c on the front foot\u201d<\/a> as a contributing factor.<\/p>\n The cloak-and-dagger operation to get Bashir and crew into Kensington Palace was real; the 2021 independent inquiry revealed how they were disguised as tradesmen to gain access to Diana\u2019s apartments.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The palace didn\u2019t know about the transmission of the interview until six days before it happened. When the news broke, recalled Dickie Arbiter, then an assistant palace press secretary, \u201ceverybody looked at each other and said: \u2018Martin who?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As for how much Elizabeth II was aware, before anyone else: \u201cI\u2019m not aware of any conversation like they posit between the Queen and Princess Diana,\u201d says historian Sarah Gristwood. \u201cI don\u2019t know what level of knowledge the queen or indeed the palace had of what was coming.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly, I think what is true is that there was a very strong reaction against the Panorama<\/em> interview and effectively against Diana, afterwards. There was a sense that a line had been crossed. I believe that view came strongly from Princess Margaret and Prince Philip; the Queen, as ever, was less vocal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that Prince Philip had in many ways been in the early stages sympathetic and supportive to Princess Diana,\u201d says Gristwood. \u201cBut I think the royal establishment could only have felt that way about the interview \u2013 especially the moment where Diana said she wasn\u2019t sure if Charles was the man for the top job \u2013 that this was utterly beyond the pale. That this was seeming (which actually Princess Diana didn\u2019t do) to be menacing the monarchy itself.\u201d<\/p>\n The Crown\u2019s<\/em> supposition of what might have happened behind closed royal doors has the Queen telling Diana: \u201cThe enemy you think I am, the hostility you imagine we all feel, is a figment of your imagination.\u201d At this moment, regret seems to flicker in Diana\u2019s face.<\/p>\n Did Diana regret giving the interview? Journalist and biographer Tina Brown heard otherwise from Gulu Lalvani<\/a>, an entrepreneur who briefly dated Diana in 1997. \u201cI am told by Lalvani,\u201d writes Brown, \u201cthat Diana said she had no regrets about the interview and made clear that she had said exactly what she wanted to say on camera.\u201d<\/p>\n The Princess realised, says Brown, that it had served her purpose \u201cto frame herself to the British public as a betrayed woman before the increasingly inevitable divorce from Charles.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n On 20 November 1995 (not, as the episode depicts, on Charles\u2019s birthday, which is on 14 November \u2013 but it did clash with the recording of the 1995 Royal Variety Show<\/em>, at which the Queen was present for Carol Kenyon\u2019s rendition of \u2018One Night Only\u2019), Bashir\u2019s exclusive, 54-minute-long interview with Diana was broadcast. During the interview, she admitted to an adulterous affair and spoke about Prince Charles\u2019s relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles<\/a>, now Duchess of Cornwall \u2013 uttering the famous phrase: \u201cThere were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.\u201d She also talked frankly about her difficulties with post-natal depression and bulimia.<\/p>\n As portrayed in the drama, the most controversial element for the royals was Diana\u2019s response to the question of whether Charles would be king, to which she replied: \u201cBeing Prince of Wales produces more freedom now, and being king would be a little bit more suffocating. And because I know the character, I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him, and I don\u2019t know whether he could adapt to that.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/11\/2BHTXY8-b2bd6d8.png?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>What preparation was made for Diana\u2019s Panorama<\/em> interview?<\/h2>\n
Did Diana and the Queen have a meeting before the interview was aired?<\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>What did Diana say in her Panorama<\/em> interview?<\/h2>\n