Left to right: Gillian Anderson, Ruth Wilson, Michael Sheen, Rufus Sewell Photo: Neil Mockford/Getty Images/Ian West/PA Wire/Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images/Smallz & Raskind/Contour
Virtually every adult in Britain remembers what happened the night Prince Andrew gave his ill-fated interview with Emily Maitlis on Newsnight in November 2019 with the intention of restoring his reputation, mired in scandal over his involvement with disgraced pedophile Geoffrey. Epstein.
It is impossible to forget Maitlis's forensic and at times shocking interrogations, the Duke's evasiveness and bluster, and some of the strangest comments ever made by a senior public figure ever shown on television: that he was unable to sweat after being in prison. in the Falkland Islands, or that he could not have had an inappropriate relationship with the young woman on the night in question because he was at the Pizza Express in Woking at the time?
It was a brilliant, unforgettable car crash series at its finest, and it's no surprise that earlier this year it was announced that it would be picked up by Netflix and that the drama would be called Scoop.
However, even though the Netflix project was filmed earlier this year, Amazon has stepped forward to make its own version of the material called A Very Royal Scandal. The film follows the widely acclaimed A Very British Scandal and the less received A Very British Scandal and is said to be a three-part limited series rather than a one-off film, focusing on Maitlis and “her personal and professional journey ”, which resulted in her meeting the Duke of York at Buckingham Palace.
It's likely, however, that none of them will treat the subject as irreverently as Prince Andrew: The Musical, last year's all-singing, all-dancing satire starring Kieran Hodgson as a superb, dim and tuneful actor. , Andrey.
There used to be competing versions of true stories; There were two separate documentaries made around the Fyre festival, Fyre Fraud and Fyre, and the life story of fraudster Anna Delvey was competed by both Netflix and HBO, with the Netflix version starring Julia Garner ultimately winning. And sometimes it’s faster and easier to abandon a project if there is a chance that it will be knocked down by another; the terrible 2022 film Persuasion, starring Dakota Johnson, put an end to another interpretation of Austen's story starring Sarah Snook.
But it looks like both Scoop and A Very Royal Scandal will definitely be ahead, so which is most likely to come out on top? We assessed the probability of success in each respective category.
Casting
Both versions of the story feature stellar actors. Scoop stars Rufus Sewell, a prosthetics specialist, as Prince Andrew, Gillian Anderson as Maitlis, Billie Piper as Sam McAllister – the Newsnight producer who arranged the interview and later wrote the book on which the drama is based – and Keeley Hawes will play Amanda Thirsk. , former private secretary to the Duke.
Michael Sheen has been announced as the prince of Amazon's three-part series A Very Royal Scandal, with Rufus Sewell playing the same role for the Netflix version
Meanwhile, A Very Royal Scandal boasts Mr. Biography himself, Michael Sheen, as Andrew, intriguing appearances from Ruth Wilson as Maitlis and Alex Jennings (The Queen, The Lady in the Van) as the Queen's former private secretary Sir Edward Young. In this production, Thirsk will be played by the great Joanna Scanlan, known for The Thick of It and The Larkins.
Each of the ensembles is extremely strong, but if we had to look for one to beat, we'd probably go with ” A very royal scandal.” While Anderson is a good actress, she has a default setting of bland superiority (as seen in The Crown and Sex Education) that she will likely bring to her version of Maitlis.
Gillian Anderson will play Emily Maitlis in the Netflix film, and Ruth Wilson will star in the three-part Amazon series
Charismatic and handsome, Rufus Sewell is probably too flattering for Andrew; Anyone who's seen him in The Man in the High Castle or the recent The Diplomat knows he can pull off patrician scorn with the best of them, but the hapless bumbling seems closer to the not-so-great Duke of York. The idea of Piper as Sam McAllister, however, seems excellent – anyone who saw her in Collateral or I Hate Susie will know that she is perfect for the role of a successful, dynamic professional woman who finds herself in a difficult situation.
But the most interesting pair seems to be Sheen and Wilson. The chameleon Sheen has been superb in playing power brokers, from Tony Blair to his recent role as Colleen Rooney's dynamic lawyer David Sherborne, and his truly uncanny turn as Chris Tarrant in the 2020 drama Who Wants to Be a Millionaire shows his ability to work with relatively little effort. makeup, prosthetics and wigs transform into a well-known real-life figure.
As for the ever-brilliant Wilson as Maitlis, she can do no wrong on screen or stage. She has typically shied away from playing real-life characters, but her recent performance as Norwegian politician Mona Juul in the HBO drama Oslo, for which she was nominated for several awards, showed that she can inhabit the role with great confidence. and a superbly convincing accent. There is little danger that she will not succeed in this role.
Winner: A Very Royal Scandal
Angle
This is the most obvious deviation between the two stories. Scoop is an adaptation of McAlister's book Scoop: The BBC's Most Shocking Interviews from Prince Andrew to Steven Seagal. the encounter with the car accident itself. The casting of Piper in particular suggests that this will be an in-depth examination of journalistic ethics and how exactly the so-called “booker extraordinaire”, as McAllister's ad describes her, managed to persuade the Duke to commit reputational hara-kiri. on TV.
A Very Royal Scandal, meanwhile, has fuzzier details, but its focus and focus on Maitlis suggests it will be closer to a biopic about the dogged journalist. However, the casting of Jennings in the lead role – not to mention the title – also indicates that the post-coronation focus will be on how the wider royal family and their courtiers reacted to the interview. This may work brilliantly, or it may be too vague; We'll see. At this point, Scoop seems to be the simpler of the two stories.
Alex Jennings (center) meets then-Prince Charles in 2011. Photo: Getty
Winner: Scoop
Access
A Very Royal Scandal, perhaps unsurprisingly, unfolds with the full cooperation of Maitlis herself, who even serves as the show's executive producer. Not only does this give it a vital sense of verisimilitude, but it also suggests that she will be able to advise Wilson in detail on her portrayal; It is unclear whether Anderson was given the same level of access to the journalist. In the meantime, Scoop will rely on McAlister's memories and experience to gain an advantage, although there may be pitfalls.
James Walton, reviewing the book for this newspaper, praised its detail of the Prince Andrew interview, but also described it as “an overly detailed and sometimes unpleasantly boastful account of why [McAllister left the BBC] remains a decidedly uneven read.” Stick with Maitlis, whose (pre-Andrew) memoir Airhead was one of the best books written in recent years about the media and her role in interviews with its most famous – and infamous – denizens.
Winner: Royal Scandal
Rufus Sewell as Judy's manager Garland, and then her third husband, Sidney Luft. Photo: AF The Personnel
A Very Royal Scandal comes from screenwriter Jeremy Brock and Julian Jarrold, who previously worked together on the middling 2008 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Jarrold is certainly no stranger to the British saga: his earlier works include A Royal Evening, which tells the story of Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth eloping for the night on VE Day, as well as another true-to-life drama about the infamous 2013 incident. The Great Train Robbery. Meanwhile, Brock has written everything from the Queen Victoria biopic Mrs Brown to the excellent Idi Amin thriller The Last King of Scotland.
Scoop, meanwhile, is directed by Philip Martin, who has worked on numerous episodes of The Crown (though given the show's cavalier approach to facts, that may not give it much insight into the royal family) and other facts. based on dramas including Einstein and Eddington and Mo, about Labor politician Mo Mowlam.
However, the series' secret weapon may be brilliant screenwriter Peter Moffat, the man behind the superb legal dramas Silk and North Square, as well as the Bryan Cranston vehicle Your Honor. Moffat knows everything there is to know about how you can (and can't) get around the law, and so this book is likely to be rich in fascinating procedural details about how closely the Newsnight team sailed into the wind while they made the show.
Winner: Scoop
Verdict
Scoop will be expected will stream first – and it's on Netflix, so it has the built-in benefit of universal availability as well as a connection to The Crown – but it would be a mistake to write off A Very Royal Scandal, which may end up being the more thoughtful and intelligent of two. Either way, though, we'll win, and the not-so-great Duke of York will likely end up looking more ridiculous than ever.
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