Hot Picks: Diana Unheard

There will be many documentaries next year marking 30 years since the death of Princess Diana and, as recent coverage of her brother Charles Spencer’s claims about the royal family has shown, her tragic story continues to make headlines.

Love Monday’s series Diana Unheard aims to offer something of a corrective to the princess’s story, thanks to the ace up its sleeve: access to five hours of secret audio recordings of interviews she gave to her biographer Andrew Morton.

The journey began when executive producer Kerene Barefield got talking to Morton after he appeared on the indie’s Amazon Prime talk show The Royal Beat back in 2023. Morton had not revealed that recordings, orchestrated by Diana to get out her side of the story, were the basis of his book until after her death, and they had remained under lock and key ever since. Bar a brief excerpt in one documentary in 2017, they had never aired publicly.

When the writer and his publisher, Michael O’Mara, played them to Barefield, it was, she says, “chilling – it gave me goosepimples the first time she spoke”.

Barefield saw a chance to steer the Diana story away from well-worn lines about bulimia and throwing herself down the stairs, presenting instead a strong-willed woman doing everything to protect her family.

“I realised how much the story we ‘knew’ was what the media told us: Diana was unhappy, she didn’t want to be in the palace, she was weak and unstable,” Barefield says. “But when you start listening to the tapes, you realise her strength. She knows what she wants, and she’s out to get it. That’s the difference between this and previous documentaries on Diana.”

The conversations swing between the ups and downs of her life, from her school days right through to confronting Camilla about her affair with Charles. Underpinning the story is the tale of subterfuge that secured the recordings in the first place: Morton, O’Mara and Diana’s confidant James Colthurst reflect on this.

Diana’s voice leads the way in the series, playing out over archive material, alongside on-camera contributions from her contemporaries and friends – including her lover James Hewitt.

“Diana Unheard offers a unique opportunity to hear in her own words what she was thinking when she was under the most intense media scrutiny of anyone on the planet,” reflects Cineflix senior vice-president, acquisitions and co-productions, Richard Life.

“Diana’s empathy, social justice, authenticity and progressive activism are all values that resonate with young people today, who are sensitive to overly-hyped puff pieces. This is raw and emotional and comes from Diana directly,” he adds.

Diana Unheard has sold to a streamer in the UK and has also been picked up in the US and Australia.

Despite its subject’s passing, Diana Unheard is, says Barefield, akin to the authorised docs in vogue today, featuring the likes of David Beckham and Kylie Minogue. “If Diana were here now, this would be her documentary,” she says. “This is the one that she would tell. This is her voice.”