The Interview
By Jonathan Maitland
‘Why should I stay silent? They’ve been trying to shut me up from day one. This way I’ll finally be heard.’
On the 20th of November 1995 the BBC broadcast an interview between Princess Diana (Yolanda Kettle, The Crown) and Martin Bashir (Tibu Fortes, Shetland).
It was watched by hundreds of millions worldwide. But now, it is said, the interview has no legitimacy. Is it right that the way it came about has overshadowed what it was meant to be?
Jonathan Maitland’s powerful new play gives an insight into the story behind the interview: the woman who gave it, the man who made it happen, and the institution that broadcast it.
The Interview poses tough questions: What can we justify in the pursuit of truth? Can we trust our great institutions? And are we ever, really, in control of our own narrative… our legacy?
An exciting new play by writer and broadcaster Jonathan Maitland (author of Park Theatre hits Dead Sheep, An Audience with Jimmy Savile, The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson) and directed by Olivier award nominated Michael Fentiman (Amelie, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Loot).
Produced by award-winning theatre company Original Theatre (The End of the Night, The Mirror Crack’d, The Habit of Art).
Original Theatre in association with Park Theatre
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Evenings
19.30
Thu & Sat15.00
Gallery
In the Press
"A five-star cracker"
Daily Mail
"An absorbing, intelligent piece of theatre"
British Theatre
"Another strong work for the Park Theatre"
All That Dazzles
"Fortes nails the deceptive charisma which enamoured Diana"
North West End
"draws poignant parallels to our fractured present"
Theatre Weekly
" more relevant than ever"
A Youngish Perspective
"A truthful, satisfyingly complex portrait"
The Stage
"Thought-provoking Bashir-gate drama"
Daily Telegraph
"Tibu Fortes’s Bashir is compelling"
The Guardian
"Asks interesting questions about morality and responsibility"
Evening Standard
"Yolanda Kettle is the literal embodiment of Princess Diana"
Tatler
Cast & Creative
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Matthew Flynn
Paul Burrell
Matthew Flynn
Paul Burrell
Trained at the Drama Centre London
Theatre includes: Private Peaceful (Nottingham Playhouse); Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Crucible (Storyhouse Chester); Agnes Colander (Ustinov Bath, Jermyn St); Child of Science (Bush Theatre); Wild Honey, 55 Days (Hampstead Theatre); City Stories (55East59 New York); I am a Walrus ( Young Vic); Children of the Sun, War Horse (National Theatre); Mare Rider (Arcola); Henry Vth, Troilus and Cressida (Globe theatre); A Streetcar named Desire, Macbeth, Mayor of Zalamea (Liverpool Everyman/Playhouse); Two Gentlemen of Verona (Northampton); As You Like It, Macbeth, How many miles to Basra? (West Yorkshire Playhouse); 1984, Julius Caesar (Royal Exchange ,Manchester); The Gentlemen’s Tea Drinking Society (Belfast); Hangover Square (Finborough Theatre); The Winters Tale, Midsummer Nights Dream, Rose Rage, Henry Vth, Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night (Propeller); Romeo and Juliet (Derby Playhouse); The Prince of Homburg (RSC/Lyric); Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar (RSC) and An Ideal Husband (Gielgud Theatre).
Television includes: Say Nothing (Disney/FX); Cobra (Sky); Finding Alice (ITV); Great Expectations (BBC,FX); Coronation St (ITV); Emmerdale (ITV); Innocent (ITV); Lawful Killing (BBC); Doctors (BBC); Lucan (ITV); Holby (BBC); Midsummer Murders (ITV); Foyles War (ITV); The Passion (HBO,BBC); After Thomas (ITV); The Quatermass Experiment (BBC) and The King Must Die (CH4).
Film includes: Femi; Sahara; Pride; A Stitch in Time; Franklyn; Broken Lines and Black Sheep.
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Tibu Fortes
Martin Bashir
Tibu Fortes
Martin Bashir
Tibu recently wrapped on a feature film starring alongside Lucy Liu, he can also be seen as a new regular in BBC One drama Shetland.
Theatre: Jerker, The Point of It, Satyagraha, Henry V, Coconut, A Passage to India (Park Theatre) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Television: Sister Boniface Mysteries, Liaison, Mammals, Ten Percent, Emmerdale, The Reluctant Landlord, Bloods and The Capture.
Film: Schirkoa, Saving Christmas Spirit and Johnny English Strikes Again.
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Naomi Frederick
Luciana
Naomi Frederick
Luciana
Naomi read English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford and trained at RADA.
Naomi is notable for her stage work as well as appearing on Television and in Film.
She won Best Newcomer for her debut role as Carol in Time & the Conways (Manchester Royal Exchange) and she received recognition twice in the Ian Charleson Awards: for Isabella in Measure for Measure (Complicité at the National Theatre) and as Irina in Three Sisters (Nuffield Theatre / Theatre Royal Bath).
Theatre: includes Handbagged (Kiln Theatre); Book Of Dust (Bridge Theatre); Agnes Colander (Theatre Royal Bath / Jermyn Street Theatre); White Teeth (Kiln Theatre); The Mentor (Theatre Royal Bath & West End); Hobson’s Choice (Theatre Royal Bath & Vaudeville Theatre); As You Like It & The Heresy of Love (both Shakespeare’s Globe); Made in Dagenham (Adelphi Theatre); Emil & The Detectives & Henry IV: Part 1 & 2 (both National Theatre); Brief Encounter (West End) and The Winslow Boy (Old Vic Theatre).
Television: includes Industry, Belgravia, EastEnders, Inspector George Gently, Casualty & Foyles War.
Film: includes Christmas In Paradise, Father Christmas is Back, The Aftermath and The Children Act.
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Yolanda Kettle
Diana, Princess of Wales
Yolanda Kettle
Diana, Princess of Wales
Theatre: Patriots (Almeida Theatre); Eden (Hampstead Theatre); Oil (Almeida Theatre); Deep Blue Sea (National Theatre); For Services Rendered (Chichester Festival Theatre); Little Light (Orange Tree Theatre); Coolatully (Finborough Theatre); Anhedonia (Wilderness Festival); Shutters (Park Theatre); Birdland (Royal Court Theatre); A Tale Of Two Cities (Royal & Derngate Northampton); A Doll’s House (Duke of York’s Theatre); Pride & Prejudice (Regent’s Park); HELLO / GOODBYE (Hampstead Theatre); A Doll’s House (Young Vic); The Seagull (Arcola) and Saved (Royal Court Gala).
Television: Roadkill (BBC); Marcella Series 2 (ITV); Doc Martin Series 8 (Buffalo Pictures / ITV); Howards End (BBC); The Crown Series 2 (Netflix); The Collection (Amazon Prime / BBC); Love, Nina, Father Brown, Mega Tsunami, Doctors, Holby City (BBC).
Film: Persuasion (Netflix).
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Ciaran Owens
Matt Weissler / Steve Hewlett
Ciaran Owens
Matt Weissler / Steve Hewlett
Ciarán trained at LAMDA.
He recently played Pierre in the UK premiere of Farewell Mister Haffman directed by Lindsay Posner.
Theatre: includes The Windsors: Endgame (West End); The Duchess of Malfi (Almeida) Cabaret (Lido 2 Paris); Rutherford and Son; Love and Information (Crucible Theatre); Tumulus (Soho Theatre); Abigail’s Party (Theatre Royal Bath/ UK Tour); A Handful of Stars (Trafalgar Studios); Disco Pigs (UK & Ireland Tour); The Brink (Orange Tree Theatre); King John (Shakespeare’s Globe); So Here We Are (Manchester Royal Exchange/ High Tide); The Crocodile (MIF); Oh What a Lovely War (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Candide; A Mad World, My Masters; Titus Andronicus (RSC); Mercury Fur (Trafalgar Studios) and Our Country’s Good (Out of Joint).
Television: includes Peaky Blinders (BBC); Temple (Sky); Small Axe (Amazon/BBC); Father Brown (BBC); Call The Midwife (BBC); Ancient Empires & Washington (History); Krypton (DC/SyFy); The Last Kingdom (Netflix); Strike Back (HBO Cinemax); Crazyhead (E4); Arthur and George (ITV); Spotless (Netflix) and Wallander (BBC)
Film: include: Red Joan; Where Hands Touch.
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Jonathan Maitland
Writer
Jonathan Maitland
Writer
Theatre: The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson (Park Theatre and National Tour); Dead Sheep (Park Theatre and National Tour); Deny Deny Deny (Park Theatre) and An Audience with Jimmy Saville (Park Theatre). In development: How To Survive Your Mother (King’s Head Theatre, October 2024); Eight Days In Bulovka; Wilko (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and Tour) Radio: Dead Sheep / Wasps in A Jam Jar (BBC Radio 4, starring Penelope Wilton and Harriet Walter) and The Rem Co (BBC Radio 4).
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Michael Fentiman
Director
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Sami Fendall
Set & Costume designer
Sami Fendall
Set & Costume designer
Sami Fendall is a British production designer who specialises in live performance, stage and screen. Sami has produced work for Stuttgart Ballet, The Birmingham Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House, Scottish Ballet, Pressman Film, Apple Inc, Immersive cult and Unicef.
In 2019 Sami was the overall winner of the National Theatres award; Linbury Prize for Stage Design. Her designs for Hotel commissioned by the Birmingham Royal Ballet were created in collaboration with choreographers Morgann Runacre-Temple and Jessica Wright. Sami went on to Art Direct Jess & Morgs multi-award winning production of Coppelia for Scottish Ballet.
In 2023, Sami designed the feature film Catching Dust which was selected and released at Tribeca and Raindance Film Festival. This September the new musical CAKE directed by Drew McOnie, which was designed by Sami had its West End premiere. Currently, Sami is designing a new production for Stuttgart Ballet in Germany.
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Emily Irish
Lighting designer
Emily Irish
Lighting designer
Training: LAMDA Theatre School – Technical Theatre.
Lighting Design: Jekyll & Hyde (Reading Rep Theatre) and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (West End).
Production Electrician: Dear England (West End); A Strange Loop (Barbican); The Ocean at the End of the Lane (UK Tour); Nativity! (Birmingham Rep); Garsington Opera; The Lehman Trilogy (West End); Demon Dentist (UK Tour); Billionaire Boy (UK Tour); Gangsta Granny (UK Tour); Secret Cinema Stranger Things; Secret Cinema Casino Royal; Mansfield Park (Grange Opera Festival). Plus various shows including with ITV, BBC and The RSC.
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Barnaby Race
Sound Designer & Composer
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Logan Kelly
Costume desinger
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Andreas Ayling
Production Manager
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Susanna Peretz
Wig Designer
Susanna Peretz
Wig Designer
Theatre includes: A Little Life (West End); The Time Traveller’s Wife (Story House Chester and West End); The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (West End, UK Tour, Curve Theatre, Birmingham Rep and Bridge Theatre); Noises Off (West End); Assassins, Doubt: A Parable, The Long Song, Hedda Tesman, Plenty (Chichester Festival Theatre); Wings, Death of a Salesman (also West End) (Young Vic); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Very Very Very Dark Matter, Julius Caesar (Bridge Theatre); Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (West End); Hamlet, The Cherry Orchard (Theatre Royal Windsor); Carousel, Peter Pan (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of The Dead (Complicité, Theatre Royal Plymouth and Bristol Old Vic, Barbican); The Last Ship (UK Tour); Is God Is Pity, Prudes, Gun Dog, Girls and Boys, Road, How To Hold Your Breath, Linda, Birdland, The Nether, The Kid Stays In The Picture, Anatomy of a Suicide, The Twits, X, Hangmen (also West End) (Royal Court); Machinal, The Game, Mr Burns, Medea, The Treatment, Carmen Disruption, Mary Stuart (also West End) Oresteia (also Trafalgar Studios), Hamlet (also West End) (Almeida Theatre); Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Old Vic); The Grinning Man (Bristol Old Vic and Trafalgar Studios); Bugsy Malone (also UK Tour) Ghost Stories, Scandaltown, Love Love Love, Tipping the Velvet, City of Glass, Jubilee (Lyric Hammersmith); The Way of the World, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Teddy Ferrara (Donmar Warehouse) and Witness for the Prosecution (London Court House).
Opera includes: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aldeburgh Festival); Alice in Wonderland, Where the Wild Things Are, Dark Mirror and Curlew River (Barbican/ US tour); The illuminated Heart (Lincoln Centre NY); Greek (Scottish Opera/ Festival Theatre, Edinburgh); and Rigoletto (Irish tour).
Film & Television includes: My Sisters Bones, Prisoners of Paradise, The Show, Electric Dreams, In The Dark Half, His Heavy Heart, Jimmy’s End, Showpieces, Skeletons (BAFTA Nominee and Michael Powell Award-winner).
Other work includes collaborations with Alan Moore on his comic book series Providence and the multimedia project As Big As the Sky with artist Ai Weiwei. Her work has also been exhibited at Sprueth Magers Art Gallery.
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Pedro Paiva
Wig Supervisor
Pedro Paiva
Wig Supervisor
Pedro Paiva is a distinguished wig and makeup theatre stylist whose artistry has touched stages internationally.
With a career spanning iconic productions such as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Comedy of Errors and Julius Caesar, as well as the Royal Danish Theatre’s Amadeus, one of his most recent works includes the new West End production, The Time Traveller’s Wife.
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Kanoko Shimizu
Stage Manager on book
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Paulina Krause
Assistant Stage Manager
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