{"id":25687,"date":"2022-11-11T14:33:32","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T13:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1736960"},"modified":"2022-11-11T15:02:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T14:02:01","slug":"the-crown-star-responds-to-backlash-over-princess-diana-storyline","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/the-crown-star-responds-to-backlash-over-princess-diana-storyline\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crown star responds to backlash over Princess Diana storyline"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 11 November 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

This week marked the release of the fifth season of hit Netflix<\/a> royal drama The Crown<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and the new run has certainly not been without its controversies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One area of the show that has come under particular backlash is the decision to dramatise the infamous 1995 Panorama interview with Princess Diana<\/a>, which journalist Martin Bashir was ruled to have obtained using \u201cdeceitful\u201d means by the 2021 Lord Dyson inquiry<\/a>.<\/p>

The report also led to the BBC declaring that the interview would no longer be aired by the broadcaster, and because of this, some viewers \u2013 including royal biographer Hugo Vickers<\/a> \u2013 have criticised the decision to feature a recreation of it in the series.<\/p>\n

But actor Prasanna Puwanarajah, who plays Bashir in the series (a role he also played in the 2013 film Diana) has defended the decision to include the scenes, although he says the reaction from some people is \u201cunderstandable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s completely understandable,\u201d he said in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com<\/a>. \u201cWe all are very aware of the complexities around a dramatisation like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Peter\u2019s work on this programme from season 1 has always been watchful and careful. And so I think there\u2019s a space that the show is in, which is about trying to unpick and trying to look at the human spaces in between the things that we know, which is just the function of drama.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Martin Bashir interviews Princess Diana in Kensington Palace.<\/span><\/figcaption> Pool Photograph\/Corbis\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

He added: \u201cIt\u2019s stuff that is interesting for people to consider, the ways in which a family that they think they know might be quite similar to their own, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the show has actually enlarged an emotional understanding around the royal family, and humanised things, which is interesting because I guess in the middle of the century or in the \u201960s and \u201970s, it was something that the royal family themselves realised that they had to do to connect to people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely see it both ways. I think it\u2019s an important thing to be acknowledging, definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Abby Robinson.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n