REVIEW Scoop (Net ix)
It was the friendly chat that was supposed to put to bed all those rumours that had dogged him for more than a decade.
The sit-down where his sheer charisma would win the British public over.
But instead, Prince Andrew’s (Rufus
Sewell) interview with
BBC Two’s news and current affairs programme Newsnight, broadcast on November 16, 2019, resulted in only ridicule and essentially a resignation from Royal duties, as he not only failed to justify his ongoing friendship with the recently deceased convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, but also variously claimed an inability to sweat and visiting a Woking pizza restaurant to deny potentially damning allegations about his conduct.
As one Royal website editor so beautifully described it, Andrew’s conversation with Newsnight’s Emily Matlis (Gillian Anderson) was less “a car crash” than “a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion”.
Already mocked in Channel 4’s 2022 satire Prince Andrew: The Musical, this right Royal disaster is now the subject of a star-studded feature-length drama that will evoke memories of Frost/ Nixon and The Hour. Adapted from former Newsnight editor Sam McAlister’s (played here by the increasingly impressive Billie Piper) 2022 book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews, screenwriters Peter Moffat and Geoff Bussetil’s tale is an almost forensic account of how she managed to persuade the Prince’s closest aides and advisors to break his silence about Epstein and “set the record straight”.
Yes, it frequently feels a bit like a lmed stage play, but that’s perhaps less a criticism and more testimony to the strength of the writing – and the cast. Scoop showcases a deep bench of talent, as well as Piper and Anderson, there’s also terri c turns from Romola Garai and Keeley Hawes, while Sewell and, more speci cally his hair and makeup team, deserves plenty of kudos for his quite frankly stunning transformation into the one-time, second-in-line to the British throne.