Page 56 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

The Man in the Gallery with the Writing on His Face 47

conspiracy in the scattershot impossibility of the variety of guilty figures
which Al-Fayed claimed were involved. In doing so it positioned Al-Fayed as
one of the dramatis personae who was in an equivalent space to Loughrey or
Howsam, trapped by monomania into a lack of sufficient self-knowledge and
insight to allow him to break free of his delusional state and to objectively
assess the nature of the obsessions gripping him. Such media commentary
asserted that this whole process was an unnecessary mis-reading of the facts
behind the deaths of these figures, that a combination of accidental factors had
created the circumstance and that the proliferation of narratives in its aftermath
was a performative smokescreen. In this analysis, to penetrate that screen
required merely a commonsensical calling to account of those parties foolish
enough to have allowed it to rise, whether these were the authorities who were
complicit in its ascent, or the lawyers, always the fat-cat focus of scepticism
and condemnation, who had let it mushroom. Social performance – including
Al-Fayed‘s loss of control as he swore at a reporter outside the court [Gregory
ii, 2008] [McClatchey], became an index of the Inquest‘s many truths and,
strangely perhaps, an unpredicted confirmation both of the importance of its
costly and lengthy process and of the significance of the proliferation in social
performance of the readings, perspectives and interpretations which surround
the establishing of a judicial grand narrative.

REFERENCES

Aston, E. & Savona, G.(1989). Theatre as Sign-System. London: Routledge.
Baker, S. (2007). Transcripts Coroner‘s Inquests into the Deaths of Diana,
Princess of Wales and Mr Dodi Al-Fayed. www.scottbaker-
inquests.gov.uk/hearing_transcripts (last accessed 22-01-2009).
Bates, S. (2007). ―PG Wodehouse meets Bourne Conspiracy at the Diana and
Dodi inquest.‖ www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/dec/13/ monarchy.
stephenbates. (Last accessed 22-1-2009).
Bates, S. (2008i). ―How Mansfield dominated the Diana Inquest.‖ Guardian.
April 8 2008. www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/08/diana.michael
mansfield?gusrc=rss&feeds=uknews.
Bates, S. (2008ii). ―Devotees return to resume vigil at Diana and Dodi
th
Inquest.‖ The Guardian. Mon, Jan 7 , 2008. at www.guardian.co.uk/uk/
2008/jan/07/monarchy.uknews4 (Last accessed 22-01-2009).
Boal, A, (1979). The Theatre of the Oppressed, Pluto, London.