The 'secret tapes' of the title refers to a short series of audio recordings made in 1991 by James Colthurst, the only person whom Diana had known for so long that his periodic arrival by bike at Kensington Palace would not seem noteworthy to the paparazzi.
Despite the limitations of audio (there wasn't room in the basket for video equipment), these tapes, which formed the basis for the Andrew Morton book, turn out to be more eloquent than either the later TV interviews with Martin Bashir or the speech training that she received from a media coach, both featured here as well. There is drama in watching the big public events of her life, each accompanied by her own spoken comments, conflicting diametrically with the official version. These may sound superficially casual and chatty, yet they carry great emotional force, and they turn out surprisingly revealing.
Among other things, they nail the popular misconception that Diana was stupid. Under-educated yes, her school work suffering from the effects of a miserably broken home and then from cruel comparisons with her 'brilliant' brother, on his way to Oxford. So she simply felt like a dunce. But although not cultivated, Diana actually had a quick and nimble mind, able to make lightning judgments. When Charles proposed marriage, her first reaction was "This is a joke"; when he told her that one day she would be Queen, she thought "No, I won't", and on the wedding morning, she felt she was "going to an execution". Correct on all three counts. And famously, her one brief comment to Camilla at their only meeting was "Don't treat me like an idiot."
The tapes were, of course, planned as propaganda, presenting Diana's own view of the relationship, and the producers of this programme (NBC, New York) have sensibly included a few advocates from the other side, notably Penny Junor, at that time on a salary from the palace. Still the abiding impression of Charles as a husband is about as unflattering as it could get. Going on honeymoon with eight volumes of Laurens van der Post. (No wonder she described her wedding night as "very strange".) And apparently her second and last pregnancy, with Harry, came as a surprise. That's how women talk when they're fifty, not twenty-two. Whatever could she have meant?
TV profiles of Diana must be well up in the hundreds, most of them fixated on the conspiracy theories of her death, now virtually proved to have been just a case of a bungled escape. This one, as NBC's presenter reminds us, is the closest thing to an autobiography.
Despite the limitations of audio (there wasn't room in the basket for video equipment), these tapes, which formed the basis for the Andrew Morton book, turn out to be more eloquent than either the later TV interviews with Martin Bashir or the speech training that she received from a media coach, both featured here as well. There is drama in watching the big public events of her life, each accompanied by her own spoken comments, conflicting diametrically with the official version. These may sound superficially casual and chatty, yet they carry great emotional force, and they turn out surprisingly revealing.
Among other things, they nail the popular misconception that Diana was stupid. Under-educated yes, her school work suffering from the effects of a miserably broken home and then from cruel comparisons with her 'brilliant' brother, on his way to Oxford. So she simply felt like a dunce. But although not cultivated, Diana actually had a quick and nimble mind, able to make lightning judgments. When Charles proposed marriage, her first reaction was "This is a joke"; when he told her that one day she would be Queen, she thought "No, I won't", and on the wedding morning, she felt she was "going to an execution". Correct on all three counts. And famously, her one brief comment to Camilla at their only meeting was "Don't treat me like an idiot."
The tapes were, of course, planned as propaganda, presenting Diana's own view of the relationship, and the producers of this programme (NBC, New York) have sensibly included a few advocates from the other side, notably Penny Junor, at that time on a salary from the palace. Still the abiding impression of Charles as a husband is about as unflattering as it could get. Going on honeymoon with eight volumes of Laurens van der Post. (No wonder she described her wedding night as "very strange".) And apparently her second and last pregnancy, with Harry, came as a surprise. That's how women talk when they're fifty, not twenty-two. Whatever could she have meant?
TV profiles of Diana must be well up in the hundreds, most of them fixated on the conspiracy theories of her death, now virtually proved to have been just a case of a bungled escape. This one, as NBC's presenter reminds us, is the closest thing to an autobiography.
