Diana’s ghost in The Crown? Darling, what’s new?
She’s the hardest working spectre in showbiz
Marina Hyde
Thanks to psychics and Hollywood actors, she’s never
wanted for work – and she’ll be a real vision in Netflix’s ‘prestige’ drama
Tue 17 Oct
2023 05.44 EDT
There is
spine-tingling supernatural news from The Crown, a TV show that takes itself
considerably more seriously than the actual royal family. This has never been a
programme that wears the “prestige TV” label as lightly as have other jewels of
the era, preferring instead to drag it like a 10-ton weight into every scene
while some of the finest actors of their generations pretend to be things like
“sad about the news”, or “Princess Anne”.
Giggling
away with a drink and a packet of crisps, I often wonder if I am its only
disloyal subject. Surely not? For a long time I couldn’t really believe anyone
took it seriously, and assumed it must be in on the joke of itself – a Nicolas
Cage of a show, if you will.
I can’t
quite decide whether this position has been bolstered or undermined by the
high-camp news that the forthcoming final series is to feature the ghost of
Princess Diana. According to reports – and it’s not out yet, so usual caveats –
the ghost appears to both Prince Charles and the late Queen.
The Queen
sees her while planning the funeral arrangements and starts crying, having been
told she “taught us what it means to be British”. To Charles, who has
apparently been shown sobbing over her body in a Paris morgue, Diana’s ghost
reportedly says: “Thank you for how you were in the hospital. So raw, broken –
and handsome.” Oooh. “I’ll take that with me. You know I loved you so much. So
deeply, so painfully too. That’s over now. It will be easier for everyone with
me gone.” Can this genuinely be the dialogue? I certainly hope so.
Having said
all that, I have kept a close eye on the appearances of Princess Di’s ghost
since her death. I’m not her talent agent or anything – indeed, the post-death
CV I am about to showcase might cause you to wonder if she even has reputable
theatrical representation in the afterlife – but once you start, patterns do
begin to suggest themselves.
One of the
most regular jobs Diana’s ghost takes, for example, is appearing to actresses
who are going to play her, to communicate how completely OK she is with their
decision. And, dare they hint, kind of honoured. Kristen Stewart, who was Diana
in the 2021 film Spencer, “felt some spooky, spiritual feelings making this
movie … I felt there were moments where I kind of got the sign-off.” It was the
same for Naomi Watts, who gave us her Diana in an eponymous 2013 film. “There
were definitely moments when I felt Diana’s presence,” explained Watts. “I
found myself constantly asking for her permission to carry on … There was one
particular moment when I felt her permission was granted.” Mm.
Elsewhere,
Diana’s ghost has eye for an occasion. Before this Crown booking, she most
recently appeared to – or rather was heard by – some viewers of the ITV
broadcast of the Queen’s funeral. As the hearse headed out of London towards
Windsor, a woman’s voice could be heard saying “the death is irreversible – the
fact that’s she’s trapped …” before a male commentator cut hastily in. Really a
very competitive booking from ITV there, who do suffer with people reflexively
watching the big events on the BBC.
Speaking of
big events, Diana’s former psychic and “energy healer”, Simone Simmons, is
still able to hear her ghost – even over the sound of cash registers. “I know a
lot of people aren’t going to like it,” hazarded Simmons in 2017, “but she said
we’ve got to vote for Brexit. Britain was great, economically and
production-wise and before we joined the EU. She was interested in the
referendum, and suggested I vote to leave because Britain was really great
before the EU.” Righto.
During
Covid, Diana’s ghost seems to have fallen in with an Australian anti-masker –
but she had long expected to keep living (or afterliving) through turbulent
times. In 2018, a Japanese spiritual leader announced she’d been in touch to
reveal that “England will experience another revolution”. Also: “I prefer
Islam.”
Then again
she’s a great lover of pubs, frequenting the England’s Rose in Oxfordshire
(formerly the Feathers) , and several others, even if her chat tends toward the
predictable. Like many with their … gift, is it? … psychics frequently reveal
she has told them Kate is perfect, but that she can’t be doing with Meghan.
Not that
Her Royal Spectralness is always welcome. A parson was reportedly called to
Sandringham in 2001 after the servants refused to work in one chamber. “The
parson said,” wrote long-time Mail royal correspondent Kenneth Rose in Volume
II of his diaries (1979-2014), “that the oppressive or disturbing atmosphere
may have been because of Princess Diana.”
A poor show
– but it must be said that workwise, the noughties for Diana’s ghost had the
humiliating flavour of John Travolta’s eighties; 2003 found her appearing in a
US pay-per-view seance. The DVD of this televisual horror show is emblazoned
with the words “BANNED IN GREAT BRITAIN”, which would sadly have limited the
presumably much-needed royalties available to its naturalised American
presenter, former Avengers star Patrick Macnee. Macnee certainly looks to be
thinking of the paycheck as he watches psychics compete to get the best content
from other-side Di.
For someone
who in life could pick up the phone to the likes of Elton John or Liza Minnelli
for a sensational gossip, it must feel a bit of a comedown having to spend
eternity with only ghastly old chancers like these to natter to. Diana
supposedly appears to one medium couple at the seance who say she’s “met Mother
Teresa”. (Funny way to put it, given she and Mother T met several times in
life, but perhaps they’d shared a drink from the river Lethe. Or Mother Teresa
was just being standoffish about the fact Diana’s death, five days before her
own, ended up completely overshadowing it.)
That seance
came before the era of prestige TV, of course, meaning it was not inherently
classy. Strange now to think back to that benighted time, when actual culture
secretaries somehow thought they had better things to do than to write to
Netflix. “I fear a generation of viewers who did not live through these events
may mistake fiction for fact,” feared Oliver Dowden about the previous series
of The Crown. For my part, I fear he is now deputy prime minister. It would be
wonderful to know Diana’s view on both that incidental detail and her upcoming
appearance in The Crown – and, since she’s the afterlife’s greatest showbiz
trouper, it surely won’t be long before we find out.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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