Initial casting has been announced for royal drama The Interview at the Park Theatre in London.
Tibu Fortes will play BBC journalist Martin Bashir with Yolanda Kettle playing Diana, Princess of Wales. Ciarán Owens will also appear with further casting to be announced. The Interview tickets are on sale here.
On 20 November 1995 the BBC broadcast an interview between Diana, Princess of Wales and Martin Bashir. 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?
This powerful new play by writer and broadcaster Jonathan Maitland and directed by Olivier Award nominated Michael Fentiman (Amelie; The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; Loot), 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?
Writer Jonathan Maitland said: “The things that led to the famous interview and the events that came after it revealed much about our country and its institutions. It’s definitely the stuff of drama and I can’t wait to see our superb cast and brilliant director Michael Fentiman bring it all to life.”
Director Michael Fentiman said: “It’s a great pleasure to be directing Jonathan Maitland’s play The Interview at Park Theatre this Autumn. It’s an opportunity to return to a theatre I have very fond memories of after my production of Joe Orton’s Loot there in 2017. It’s an added bonus that I get to work with a theatre company in Original Theatre, who I have long admired as a tireless and vital part of the UK’s new work ecology. Jonathan Maitland is a writer of great integrity and bravery and it’s been an honour to be trusted with his play.”
The Interview is produced by the award-winning theatre company Original Theatre (The Mirror Crack’d, The Habit of Art) who delivered Park Theatre productions The End of The Night, Napoli, Brooklyn and Monogamy and the forthcoming The Time Machine – A Comedy, this December.
Artistic Director of Original Theatre, Alastair Whatley, said: “I am delighted to be returning to Park Theatre once again with the first of two plays back-to-back, first up with a world première of Jonathan Maitland’s superb new play. It’s wonderful for us to be collaborating with director Michael Fentiman and a brilliant cast and creative team for what we anticipate will be a play that gets London talking.”
The Interview runs at Park Theatre from 27 October until 25 November 2023.
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