Office actor Baladi tipped for Dodi role

The Office star Patrick Baladi is due to play Princess Diana's lover Dodi Fayed in a TV docudrama, according to reports.

Diana: Last Days Of A Princess will be shown on Five in September, following the 10th anniversary of the car crash that killed the couple, says the Daily Express.

Patrick, best known for playing David Brent's smooth boss Neil in the hit comedy, will appear opposite relatively unknown Irish actress Genevieve O'Reilly, who has starred in the ITV drama Time Of Your Life.

The programme, reported to cost £2 million, will combine drama with interviews and archive footage to trace the final weeks of the Princess before the Paris crash in August 1997.

Five's senior programme controller Chris Shaw told the paper: "We wanted to mark the 10th anniversary by remembering the Diana legacy with a straightforward look at that final day.

"For most people in the UK, it's our JFK day - everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard that she had died."

The partly US-financed project will be directed and produced by Richard Dale, who gave a similar treatment to the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 disaster in the docudrama 9/11: The Twin Towers.