In Her Own Words: The Diana Tapes at Red Sandcastle Theatre

This tense thriller presents the true story of one of the greatest media scandals in British history – the publication of Andrew Morton’s book about Diana, Princess of Wales, which ended her marriage and shook the monarchy to its core. The question remains: who was the victim, and who the victor?

In Her Own Words: The Diana Tapes moves between Morton’s office, the sitting room where the Princess recorded her darkest secrets onto cassettes, and the dingy West London cafe where one of her best friends surreptitiously handed them over. The subterfuge and deception are brought to a scorching climax that changed celebrity, privacy, and the Windsor family forever. This August, with the 20th anniversary of the Princess’s untimely death upon us, this story is more potent than ever. The play allows us to tell the story of a woman who we all invaded and utilised to understand ourselves and our society; it allows us to consider the role of the media in our cultural institutions and governing bodies, and the impact it has on our perceptions, then and now. The Diana Tapes explore dialogues around agency and ownership of personal histories and stories – who writes them, who consumes them, and who they impact – and takes responsibility for humanizing an iconic person, and giving language to a individual so often identified simply by images.