I was in the mood for Poldark and Diana on Sunday evening so I watched Diana on Channel 4 till 9pm, then switched over to catch Poldark on BBC 1 and finally caught up with the last part of Diana on Channel 4+1. A kind of sandwich, courtesy of “+1”.
This could have been confusing as the plots were similar, being primarily about women whose husbands loved another. Eventually both Diana and Demelza emerged with glory as they were fundamentally strong women. It could easily be forgotten that one has sadly died and the other was fictional.
The Diana film got a pasting in the Times. Andrew Billen said it was pretentious and trashy.
But isn’t everything these days? It was a little ‘long drawn out’, but entertaining, if mainly for its archive footage of Diana. I don’t imagine it will increase the popularity of the future monarch and his good wife, but that will soon blow over. The best thing about the film was that it didn’t feature (or even mention) Paul Burrell.
Poldark got good reviews in the Times, and according to their stats, it won the ratings war. It’s fundamentally a strip cartoon with more emphasis on the ‘fun’ than the ‘mental’ and it has a couple of real bad baddies, particularly George, who is as blatantly evil than anyone in EastEnders.
As it’s a strip-cartoon it seems churlish to complain when certain fictional characters behave inconsistently, but surely George wouldn’t capitulate so easily, let alone be reduced to a quivering jelly at Elizabeth’s new-found defiance, when he had been so cruel and cold for the last few episodes? And surely Elizabeth wouldn’t swear a porky pie on the actual bible?
There is to be another series. No doubt the BBC will squeeze it dry, as is their wont. They seem determined to do that with everything that proves a hit. They’ll probably introduce the obligatory quota of BAME and religiously diverse characters, just to finish it off completely.
Meanwhile, they could exploit the revival of Princess Diana themed entertainment by dramatising the latest conspiracy theory concerning mysterious circumstances surrounding her “murder“. This talk, by a far-right group named “Keep Talking” was to have been held tonight (I think) in Holborn, but the event has been stopped by police.
“The Daily Mail reported that at a recent Keep Taking event had seen Holocaust denier Nick Kollerstrom booked to speak, but that event was postponed after complaints to the council.
Mr Kollerstrom was stripped of his research fellowship at University College London (UCL) after writing an article entitled The Auschwitz Gas Chamber Illusion for a known Holocaust denial website in 2007.
A regular attendee of previous events put on by the group was James Thring who has links to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Another earlier Keep Talking event was addressed by Piers Corbyn, the climate change-denying brother of the Labour Party leader.
In a statement at the time, Mr Fantom said that the presence of the Labour leader's brother at the meeting was a "set up by the press in order to smear his brother", and that the "distortion and manipulation" was coming from "the Israel lobby”.
Can you picture that Diana-themed tale, fictionalised and dramatised by the BBC in strip-cartoon fashion, hopefully not set in Cornwall, but with a full complement of baddies and very, very baddies.
