Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell in Scoop. Photograph / Netflix
Netflix has made a drama out of the disaster that sealed the Duke of York’s destiny. From Emily Maitlis’ whippet to the depiction of Andrew — what does it gloss over?
After the cameras stopped
rolling on his catastrophic Newsnight interview in November 2019, Prince Andrew turned to Emily Maitlis and mentioned: “Properly, that went properly, didn’t it?” It was a rare misjudgment: the grilling about his friendship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein would drive the Duke of York to step again from public life, win the BBC a shelfload of awards and launch a thousand memes: about Andrew’s Pizza-Specific-in-Woking alibi, incapability to sweat and outline of “a simple capturing weekend”.
It was deemed such a automotive crash that it has been mined for 2 rival tasks, the primary of which, Scoop, is predicated on three chapters of a e-book by Sam McAlister, the producer who helped to safe the interview for Newsnight, and landed on Netflix on Friday. Billie Piper performs McAlister and Gillian Anderson is Maitlis. Amazon’s A Very Royal Scandal, starring Ruth Wilson as Maitlis and Michael Sheen as Prince Andrew, is anticipated this yr.
So how correct is Scoop? The movie incorporates a disclaimer stating that “some components have been fictionalised”. A lot of the real-life protagonists emphasise that the film-makers have used “inventive licence” and “closely dramatised” occasions, most clearly rejigging the timeline (BBC job cuts have been introduced after the interview, not earlier than) and turning telephone calls and emails into in-person conversations. As McAlister has famous, the writers confronted a problem: they needed to flip sending scores of emails right into a compelling movie.
Is Prince Andrew actually a buffoon with a teddy bear obsession?
A few of the most fascinating choices, nonetheless, are round characterisation — together with that of the duke. Rufus Sewell, remodeled by means of prosthetics from comely to jowly, performs Andrew as a buffoon with a Bridesheadesque teddy bear obsession (true) who reminisces about “Mummy” combing his hair earlier than he went off to boarding faculty. Sewell says that he modelled his model of Andrew on Ricky Gervais’s David Brent from The Workplace, a personality devoid of self-awareness.
Some viewers will really feel this lets the duke off flippantly. “The place Netflix barely pulled its punches, [it was because] they didn’t need this to grow to be a row with the royal household,” a Palace insider says. “They didn’t need to get into the dynamics of the ‘spare’, and they also made Andrew seem like a petulant fool. There will likely be individuals who assume they’re glossing over the problem right here: that this can be a man who, at the perfect, made an appalling error of judgment and at worst turned a blind eye or was complicit in crimes.” Epstein’s victims, whereas talked about, should not given a voice within the movie.
Why did Andrew’s camp permit the interview to occur?
Within the royal camp, Andrew’s former spin physician Jason Stein comes out of Scoop properly — he’s a Cassandra who can see that the interview will likely be a catastrophe, however is ignored. Stein joined the Palace in September 2019 to attempt to rebuild Andrew’s fame, and left earlier than the Newsnight interview was filmed in November. His various PR technique, as proven within the movie, was to have tête-à-têtes with royal correspondents and newspaper editors, an method deemed too sluggish by the impatient Andrew. Scoop doesn’t present this, however Stein felt that the duke would want to offer an interview to mark his sixtieth birthday by which he would apologise for his affiliation with Epstein to attempt to detoxify his picture. This may have been extra tightly managed: most likely carried out by a newspaper, with guidelines about what couldn’t be requested.
Contemplating the brutal criticism she acquired within the press for encouraging Andrew to do the interview, Scoop is comparatively sympathetic to his aide Amanda Thirsk. Performed by Keeley Hawes, Thirsk, who joined the royal family in 2004 after a profession in banking, is portrayed as naive about her boss’s flaws, pondering that he would have the ability to redeem himself if the world noticed him as she did.
Was the palace actually so hands-off?
“Amanda was let down by her notion of Andrew not being true,” the Palace supply says. “The movie makes it seem like Sam bounced her and that she had no alternative, whereas in actuality Amanda made huge errors. One in every of them was that she didn’t use the institutional BBC for this, which has a means and a historical past of interacting with the Palace — an unwritten contract between the 2. The Newsnight crew have been like a renegade arm of the BBC who ended up in Buckingham Palace interviewing the renegade prince.” That he was being arrange for failure now appears apparent. Within the preparation for the interview within the movie, Maitlis asks, “What if he’s good?” when the fact is that Newsnight wouldn’t have allowed Andrew to “be good”.
This royal supply added that whereas Thirsk “threw away the home benefit” that the monarchy has when coping with the media, the broader Palace let this interview occur. “I feel she made some spectacular errors, however she was additionally allowed to make these errors by the royal family, who simply didn’t care about Andrew. The movie doesn’t actually get into that as a result of Netflix doesn’t need to annoy the royal household. In actual life, nobody stopped Thirsk. There are security measures to cease such disasters, however the air luggage didn’t inflate.” That is solely briefly alluded to twice within the drama, with the presence of Queen Elizabeth’s communications secretary, Donal McCabe, earlier than the interview, then later when the director-general of the BBC on the time, Tony Corridor, notes that the Palace has not known as to attempt to cease the printed.
Did the Queen give the interview the inexperienced mild?
Scoop exhibits Andrew going to hunt “Mummy’s” approval for the interview, which was carried out in a state room in Buckingham Palace. This stays disputed, with Maitlis and McAlister believing he consulted her and royal sources insisting that she was advised solely after the interview had been organized.
How did Newsnight pull it off?
Andrew’s fiasco was, in fact, Newsnight’s triumph. The present had been fighting dwindling audiences and locked in infernal Brexit debates; afterwards, one of many present’s most senior workers mentioned that the interview had purchased it a keep of execution. The timing of this drama appears “mad” to Newsnight staffers now, because the programme faces massive cuts and is to have its run time diminished to half-hour with much less concentrate on investigations.
The place the movie appears to stay most intently to the details is around the interview negotiations. It did all start with a press launch about Pitch@Palace, Andrew’s initiative to encourage entrepreneurship. Princess Beatrice got here to a gathering, though one other supply remembers her as extra “standoffish” than within the present the place she, like Thirsk, is happy to satisfy Maitlis. McAlister did inform Andrew that he was nonetheless perceived by the general public as “Randy Andy” and “Air Miles Andy”.
After the interview Andrew was happy with himself and provided Maitlis a palace tour. Nevertheless, whereas in Scoop Maitlis jokes about being smuggled into the palace à la Martin Bashir coming to see Princess Diana, the fact was extra mundane, with Newsnight sources saying they walked in by means of the entrance door.
Was McAlister the hero?
This movie is McAlister’s model of occasions; Maitlis will inform hers within the three-part sequence A Very Royal Scandal, which she has executive-produced. Within the Newsnight places of work, workers assume that Maitlis, who left the BBC in 2022, is irked by the Netflix model, though she is diplomatic to her mates, telling them that she is glad for McAlister. In flip, there have been many rumours that McAlister feels her half in negotiating the interview has been diminished by colleagues, together with in a July 2020 interview that Maitlis and the Newsnight editor on the time, Esme Wren, gave to Radio Instances that didn’t point out her. McAlister says that the animosity between her and Maitlis on display isn’t actual — it’s simply drama.
Is Emily Maitlis actually that haughty and eccentric?
Some on the BBC really feel the portrayal of Maitlis is unfair. Gillian Anderson has deployed the identical languid superiority that she used when enjoying Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, making Maitlis appear haughty, chilly and eccentric, bordering on bizarre. “Maitlis is rigorous, good and has excessive requirements, however she was widespread at Newsnight — and he or she’s pleasant, beneficiant and actually not grand,” a pal says.
Her canine Moody is within the workplace on a regular basis in Scoop, like an emotional help animal (Anderson mentioned on the premiere that the hound was a diva so she was typically filmed holding a lead with no canine connected). Maitlis wrote on Twitter/X that she had been “upstaged by my very own whippet — once more” as she shared the Scoop trailer. In actuality, Newsnight insiders say that she by no means introduced Moody in when presenting as it could be such an extended shift, solely very sometimes taking him in when she had a few hours of interview prep or briefings to do.
Who deserves the credit score for fixing the interview?
The movie has divided opinion within the BBC. There are those that applaud that one of many company’s military of underpaid and infrequently underappreciated manufacturing workers is having fun with a second within the solar and a extra vociferous group who complain that McAlister has taken an excessive amount of of the glory.
“BBC presenters hog the credit score on a regular basis they usually’re properly paid; I don’t perceive why persons are so resentful of somebody who was once fairly poorly paid cashing in on their work,” a producer on one other BBC information programme says. “Sam’s simply noticed a possibility and run — in her leopard print boots — with it.” McAlister has advised the story of how a BBC govt spent extra on taxis than she earned in a yr working part-time, and mentioned on the Scoop premiere that “normally folks in my position behind the scenes … don’t actually get heard about”.
A former Newsnight staffer, nonetheless, mentioned that McAlister had taken an excessive amount of credit score for what was a crew job. “There have been a couple of individuals who have been completely basic in getting that interview to occur — [the deputy editor at the time] Stewart Maclean being the important thing one,” they mentioned. “With out him, it could by no means have occurred — he received it throughout the road with Amanda, and stayed in contact together with her lengthy after.” Others whose roles have been diluted, they added, embrace the Newsnight staffers Alicia Quiero, Stuart Denman and Jake Morris, who “are being erased from the image, [but] they have been completely basic.” One other Newsnight supply added that the absence of many colleagues from McAlister’s e-book launch and the Scoop premiere was telling: “It wasn’t a one-woman triumph … Telly is a crew effort with hours of phonecalls.”
The pursuit of fact is a journalistic intention, however the story of how that interview happened in November 2019 maybe illustrates the knowledge of the royal family’s line about its personal inner dramas: recollections do certainly differ.
Scoop is on Netflix now.
Written by: Rosamund Urwin
© The Instances of London
