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Diana celebrated

Esther Addley

Her two sons mark her anniversary through a concert

— Photo: AP

ICON ALIVE: Princes William (left) and Harry at the concert at Wembley Stadium in London.

London: The Concert for Diana, held on Sunday at the Wembley stadium, was all about nostalgia and carefully confected sentiment, and was the party that Diana, 10 years dead this summer, would have wanted.

It would have been the princess’ 46th birthday, an event which allowed her sons to plan a celebratory commemoration of her life ahead of the inevitably more solemn anniversary of her death in August.

“We know that if our mother was here today... she’d be the first up out of her seat and dancing,” the princes wrote in the introduction to the concert’s programme. “Please join us in wishing our beloved mother a very happy birthday.”

Under an enormous silver proscenium, its shape apparently based on the looping D of the princess’s signature, an extraordinarily mixed bag of performers lined up to appear in front of the 68,000 crowd. They were selected, the princes said, because they were “her favourites and ours.”

The concert, we are told, was from the beginning the brainchild of Princes William and Harry, as “our way of remembering her the way we knew her — full of fun and laughter, and full of a love of life.”

Perhaps surprisingly, the pair showed themselves no mean party planners. First on stage, delighting the crowd, was Sir Elton John singing Your Song.

Then the princes took to the microphone, Harry even allowing himself a brief rock star moment, yelling a faintly comical “Hello Wembley!” to the audience.

“This evening is about all that our mother loved in life: her music, her dance, her charities, her family and friends,” Harry said, before adding a surprise message to some absent friends. “I’d also like to say hi to all the guys in A Squadron Household Cavalry, who are serving out in Iraq at the moment. I wish I was there with you. I’m sorry I can’t be, but to you and everyone else in operations at the moment we would both like to say: stay safe.”

Had Diana changed the royal family, the crowd on the way in had been pondering? With that tiny, breathtaking flash of their mother’s spontaneous capacity to connect, the princes settled the argument.

It was a curious experience to watch again the footage of Diana, screened in the many breaks between performances — inspecting another troop line, cuddling another toddler, waving yet another posy at yet another adoring crowd. To watch such footage is to be reminded that in truth she belonged to another age. —

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