Like anyone who saw the original Newsnight interview with the Duke of York, I came away from it shocked.
How could he not apologize to the victims of his predatory friend Jeffrey Epstein? How could Prince Andrew not ‘remember’ meeting a young woman, Virginia Roberts, as she was then known?
Why was Prince Andrew so ridiculous, even comical? Remember the claim that he was ‘medically’ unable to sweat – the ‘not knowing’ where the bar was at the Tramp nightclub, a nightclub he had visited many times before?
Andrew stayed at a sex offender’s home because it was “convenient,” he said. He was photographed in Central Park in the company of Epstein, now a convicted sex offender, because he wanted to say goodbye in an ‘honorable’ way.
The reaction was, of course, explosive when the BBC broadcast the interview in 2019. The prince’s trial in the court of public opinion was quickly concluded.
“You go, girl!” we all shouted as interviewer Emily Maitlis slowly stabbed him.
Maitlis (played by Gillian Anderson) is intelligent, composed, hardworking, in possession of a photographic memory and owner of a whippet, who never leaves her side
But after watching Scoop, the new Netflix film based on program fixer Sam McAlister, and her book about securing the exclusive interview with Andrew, I’m starting to think a little differently.
The plot is the story of how the interview was obtained, a kind of sub-Watergate mess of secret meetings, text messages and snatched photos. And the theme, of course, is women’s empowerment in a post-MeToo world.
Sam (played by Billie Piper) is a working-class girl, a single mother who wears leopard print and heels.
Maitlis (played by Gillian Anderson) is intelligent, composed, hardworking, in possession of a photographic memory and owner of a whippet, which never leaves her side. Aww!
Prince Andrew’s right-hand man, Amanda Thirsk, took the blame for allowing the interview (she later resigned, reportedly with a legal settlement). But, played by Keeley Hawes, she comes across as caring and motherly, wanting only the best for her husband-child burden.
We’re often reminded why these women (Sam, Emily and Newsnight boss Esme Wren, played by the wide-eyed Romola Garai) are out to get this particular prince.
This film shows that Andrew is human, but I’m sure that’s not what the Newsnight team meant
We see Sam on the top deck of a bus watching young girls chatting: watch the viewer, see how carefree these girls are, but also how vulnerable.
We see the faces of the young girls leaving Epstein’s mansion in New York. The camera lingers on them.
Pictures of the victims hang on the walls of the BBC offices, as if this is a police investigative unit and the aim is to catch and convict a murderer.
But by showing all these nuts and bolts – all that chasing a story to stay in a job – Scoop had a surprising effect on me… I started to feel sorry for Prince Andrew, something I never thought I would it would happen.
There is a sense of something disreputable about the process, something close to duplicity.
How about buying a friendly cocktail for the target’s handler, like Sam does for Thirsk? Or the selfish sense that this is Andrew’s chance to make things right?
The guarantees that the filmmakers can be trusted – that they are, in fact, friends? The credentials wobbled under Thirsk’s nose and the promises made that would never be kept?
The prince’s portrayal is undoubtedly accurate enough: all the rearranging of Kanga and Roo on his bed, the barking at the servants.
There is one scene where Andrew remembers Mom combing his hair. On another occasion, he spies Maitlis just before the interview is filmed, and exclaims in surprise and apparent disapproval, “Pants!?”
Was he expecting a ringside seat on a challenging pair of knees?
The production team wants us to see a buffoon and only a buffoon, baring his huge ass along the way. It’s as if the filmmakers want to destroy him again.
(Coincidentally, the regal backside was played by a body double because Rufus Sewell, while perfectly capturing the princely jowls and no-one-at-home look, couldn’t gain enough weight in time to play Andrew).
Look forward to the moment when the Newsnight team – eerily in this view – watch the broadcast as it heads to the country.
Social media numbers shoot up before their eyes like they’re playing a slot machine in Vegas. Kerching! Jobs saved at the BBC. Mortgages paid. A Bafta for sure?
Yes, the leads are female, but that doesn’t make the on-screen proceedings good or worthy.
Looking at it, you would have to conclude that the prince was being ‘played’. Andrew turns out to be an easy target: no matter how high the railings around the palace were, he was left hideously naked, playing with a bucket and spade in the sand – surrounded by people who were too sheltered, coddled or weak to see the shark that was there was lurking just below. the surface of the waves.
The prince has not yet been trained in good PR and optics, but has learned that he has no self-awareness at all. He truly believed he had nothing to hide.
Like most people, I am baffled by the way he has crept back into a more public role, not least because he led the royal family to a recent memorial service, filling the gaps left by his ailing brother the King , and the princess had left behind. of Wales. How dares he!
Rufus Sewell and Gillian Anderson star in this surprising adaptation of the BBC interview
But for me this film has tempered the anger, the outrage. I wonder if the real Emily Maitlis cringes a little.
Andrew doesn’t come across as evil or even as stupid, just a product of the institution he was born into.
We all laughed when he told the nation he was “honorable,” but perhaps the uniform, rituals and medals rubbed off on him. He has passed others in hallways all his life, without knowing their names or their positions. He doesn’t think a dinner for 12 people is a ‘party’. Really.
Most of all, he seems lonely.
The lack of acknowledgment or apology to Epstein’s victims was a yawning omission.
But it was also a mirror held up to the royal family, asking how relevant the monarchy is today. How appropriate it is to preach about homelessness when you live in palaces. To demand privacy when advocating for openness, transparency and mental health awareness. Traveling in a gas-guzzling helicopter while planting trees.
I wonder if Scoop will be shown at Buckingham Palace’s famous staff movie nights. If so, I hope they applaud ‘Randy, Air Miles’ Andy for still standing.
That’s what the Newsnight team do in Scoop: they applaud each other when the interview comes out. They grabbed a shovel and then walked quickly.
This new film shows that Andrew is human, but I’m sure that’s not what the Newsnight team intended. Not at all.