Grade blocks royal TV psychoanalysis

Michael Grade, the controller of Channel 4, yesterday pulled the plug on a programme which would have put the mental state of the Princess of Wales under scrutiny.

The Without Walls programme "Psychoanalysing Diana" was to have involved Dylan Evans, a television psychoanalyst, in an on-the-couch cross-examination of a Diana-lookalike actress.

But Channel 4 said last night that it had shelved next Tuesday's screening after it had been viewed by its Mr Grade and John Willis, its director of programmes. Mr Willis said in a statement: "This was a very innovative and unusual concept. In the end, after the normal editorial process of viewing within the channel, Michael Grade and I decided that the idea did not work and therefore we will not be transmitting it."

The actress was to be asked about her relationship with Prince Charles and her reliance on therapists. Mr Evans was to claim that the way she treated men - "swallowing them and then spitting them out" - reflected the eating disorder bulimia she suffered from.