The BBC has ordered Diana & I, a 90-minute fictional drama about the impact Princess Diana’s death had on people’s lives.
Written by writer and director Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland) and directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty), it tells the story from the point of view of four ordinary people and is set across the week that followed her death on Aug. 31, 1997.
Big Talk Productions is producing the project for BBC Two. Said Brock: “I was compelled by the impact that incredible week had on all of us who remember it, whether royalist or not. I wanted to explore the lives of four ordinary people and how they internalized their memories of Diana in the aftermath of her death.”
He added: “The week following her fatal car crash was a week like no other before. It catapulted many of us into emotional states we rarely visit, leaving us open to new insights and new experiences. Diana & I is categorically not a film written in memoriam. It’s a celebration of what it’s like to be human — good and bad — in the unexpurgated and improvisatory shock of real life.”
The drama will trace four characters’ fictional stories, in parallel but at times interlinked. They are a mother, a son, a wife and a boyfriend.
Said Piers Wenger, controller of BBC Drama: “Jeremy has written a deeply emotional and evocative script, which examines the impact of the Princess of Wales’ tragic death on four individuals and on us all. Peter Cattaneo and the brilliant team at Big Talk have assembled a wonderful cast and I cannot wait to see Jeremy’s vision brought to life on BBC Two.”
International rights are being represented by Chris Rice and Lorenzo De Maio at WME.
