Scoop is a hit with viewers as they praise ‘brilliant’ and ‘intriguing’ film that portrays Prince Andrew’s infamous Newsnight interview

Scoop is a hit with Netflix viewers, with the film about Prince Andrew’s infamous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis debuting on the streamer on Friday.

The film is based on the book Scoops by Sam McAlister and captures the excitement behind booking the royal for the interview, as well as the tension among the cast during the interview.

Viewers took to X/Twitter in the hours after the film hit the platform, and most gave it a positive review.

Gillian Anderson’s performance as Emily was praised, as was Billie Piper who plays Sam McAllister, the producer who secured Prince Andrew’s interview.

Users praised the film, writing: ‘Spent my morning watching Scoop on Netflix, which documents how that infamous interview with Prince Andrew came about – it’s utterly brilliant and a very intriguing watch. Highly recommended!’

‘Connor Swindells is in the scoop! I really enjoyed the movie, Billie Piper was excellent. Actually, all the acting was great. But what on earth was with the stuffed animals on Prince Andrew’s bed? Foreign.’

‘Here for Billie Piper and Gillian Anderson #Scoop’… ‘As much as I like Billi Peiper, when I watch her act all I see is Billie Piper’… ‘I just watched Scoop, it’s amazing !’

‘Absolutely amazing, loved every minute of this #Lepel’… ‘A brilliant piece of TV. Definitely worth it. Especially when you realize that the interview is another part of the big, terrible story that this story is – and is still a reality for too many victims.”

In a slightly less positive review, one user wrote: ‘Just finished watching Scoop on Netflix. Definitely worth a watch, but nothing special. Gillian Anderson nails Emily Maitlis. But apart from that, very mediocre. 3/5.’

In the infamous interview, Emily discussed Virginia Giuffre’s claims that she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times at the age of 17 on Epstein’s orders.

The prince strongly denied the claims during the interview.

The discussion, in which Andrew made a series of claims – including claiming that he could not have been with Virginia at the time of the alleged meeting because he was dining at a Pizza Express in Woking and that a medical condition prevented him from sweating – has since gained notoriety and is widely acknowledged to have embarrassed the royal family.

The interview was described as a ‘car crash’ and on November 20, 2019, a statement from Buckingham Palace said Prince Andrew had been suspended from public duties ‘for the foreseeable future’.

In May 2020, it was announced that the prince was permanently resigning from his public positions.

In January 2022, Virginia was given the green light to sue Andrew for unspecified damages in a civil court in New York.

Despite promising to fight the claims and repeatedly protesting his innocence, the prince agreed to pay a huge sum to settle the case before it ever reached a jury. interview and then the film.

Netflix describes the production as follows: ‘The inside track on the women who broke through the Buckingham Palace establishment to secure the scoop of the decade that led to the catastrophic fall from grace of the Queen’s ‘Favorite Son’ .

‘From navigating vetoes at the Palace, to breaking Prince Andrew’s inner circle, the high-stakes negotiations and the intensity of the rehearsal – to the breathtaking interview itself.

‘SCOOP is the insider’s account of the inner workings of the Palace and the BBC, two bastions of the British establishment, spotlighting the journalists whose tenacity and courage broke through the highest ceilings – and into the inner sanctum and calculations of one man with losing everything.”

What the dramatization doesn’t show, however, is the alleged tension between TV star Emily and producer Sam.

Sam would earn around a tenth of Emily’s annual salary of £325,000 and while Emily would arrange taxis for work trips, Sam would hop on buses from the BBC’s central London headquarters to Buckingham Palace for meetings with Prince Andrew’s former private secretary.

The disparity is perhaps all the more glaring for single mum Sam after Emily gave an in-depth interview to Radio Times in 2020 explaining how the story came about – with McAlister not mentioned once.

In the piece – titled ‘How we did it, Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis and Esme Wren on the Prince Andrew interview that shocked the world’, Wren, now editor of Channel 4 News, said: ‘We have delivered quite an exceptional piece of journalism.

A former colleague said: ‘While those working behind the scenes don’t always get the credit, it seems quite unfair and wrong for Emily to go public and not mention Sam in such a high-profile interview.

‘Emily had a significant salary and Sam had Sam earning around £30,000 a year behind the scenes. Without Sam there would have been no interview with Prince Andrew. It’s that simple.’

Speaking about how she felt overlooked, a source said: “Sam tried to laugh it off. It seemed very baffling that two women would not mention another, much younger woman in an interview where they were talking about how the interview came about.”

But friends of Sam say the omission was a factor in her decision to leave the BBC in 2021 to go freelance and champion the behind-the-scenes production staff.

Emily, 53, has always refused to comment on the split.

Now Emily is making her own show based on the interview, A Very Royal Scandal, currently in production for Netflix rival Amazon Prime.

Since money is no object for both streaming giants, they have been competing to find the ultimate Hollywood cast for their adaptations.

Scoop has an A-list cast – according to friends, McAlister is ‘over the moon’ to have landed The Crown’s Anderson – while A Very Royal Scandal has Hollywood’s Michael Sheen as its prince.

He recently said he doesn’t want his portrayal to be a “hatchet job”: “It’s inevitable that you want to bring humanity to the character.”

Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson will take on the role of Maitlis and The Thick Of It’s Joanna Scanlan will play Thirsk in A Very Royal Scandal.

As for the scripts, Scoop features British playwright and screenwriter Peter Moffat and Philip Martin, who worked on seven episodes of The Crown in 2017, as director.

Emily has arguably gone one step further with her three-part series, recruiting Bafta-nominated director Julian Jarrol, who helmed The Crown and worked on Sky Atlantic drama This England.

However, she faces a race against time to get her production ready before Netflix’s Scoop, which will be released on the streaming platform on April 5.