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Disasters make great viewing, which explains TV’s current project of rewatching Emily Maitlis’ 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew from every possible angle. We’ve already seen Netflix’s Scoop (based on the memoir by Newsnight booker Sam McAllister, who proved miraculously central to every development in that telling, despite, oddly, barely featuring here), and now comes the grown-ups’ version. Maitlis herself collaborated on this Prime Video three-parter, which has Ruth Wilson playing her, and Michael Sheen as the Prince.
For Prince Andrew, the interview was a fuck-up extraordinaire. Not since “let them eat cake” has a royal invited worse PR on themselves. How a man wrapped in more protection than your average Apple product was allowed to go on TV and display such callous, charmless arrogance in an attempt to defend his friendship with a convicted sex offender, beggars belief.
If “how” is your question, then A Very Royal Scandal has an answer: he was clueless. Years of a frictionless royal existence cosseted by “the Firm” and validated by Yes Men meant that the Prince walked away from that interview thinking he’d nailed it. Why wouldn’t he? Everybody – his ex-wife, his daughter, his private secretary and the cloud of guffawing, titled gadflies who buzz around him on shooting weekends – is always telling him what a great guy he is. Confident, likeable, honourable… surely the public will see the same and this whole mess will blow over.
Sheen plays that naivety so well that it’s almost possible to feel sympathy for the character. His Andrew is a guileless man-child, prone to avoiding difficult conversations by challenging impromptu foot races and shouting “Last one there’s a fatty!”. Unlike in The Crown and Scoop, there’s no appearance from his teddy bear collection, but like the Queen and Prince Charles (who get the never-seen treatment of Norm’s wife Vera in Cheers) just because it’s not in front of you, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Somewhat endearingly, Andrew’s dedication to his daughters Beatrice (Honor Swinton-Byrne) and Eugenie (Sofia Oxenham) is shown here as undeniable. Less deniable, in this fictionalised retelling, is his guilt.
Guilt is where A Very Royal Scandal stands apart from Scoop, in that this miniseries demonstrates at least the mildest interest in it. When allegations are made against the prince by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s many victims, Andrew is visited by brief, impressionistic flashbacks: a party, a club dancefloor, a bathroom, a massage, a group of young women in evening wear, and the face of Jeffrey Epstein – the man the prince was at such pains to distance himself from in that fateful interview. The flashbacks timidly suggest, and only suggest, that the prince’s blanket denials of ever having met Giuffre or any of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficked victims are not the whole story.
By episode three though, there’s an odd shift. The whole thing seems to lose its nerve, and presents Andrew as a wholehearted believer in his own innocence who’s hung out to dry by his family’s decision to settle with Giuffre out of court. When the prince asks his mother’s personal secretary what he’s meant to do now, he’s told: “You live with the consequences of your actions, sir”. It’s a damning line from screenwriter Jeremy Brock, but one that transfers the responsibility for judging the prince away from this drama and onto the Crown itself.
Maitlis’ guilt, obviously of a far less serious nature, is also explored. In the somewhat weightless third episode that attempts to round off this ongoing story, we see her wade through the sexist aftermath of her ‘monarchy killing’ interview. This section, more than the many scenes of her homelife, morning jogs, and highly strung whippet, is where Maitlis’ authorial voice comes across most strongly. The drama is most keen to make it clear that Maitlis meant the prince, his family, or the monarchy, no harm. She had misgivings. She thought about the victims. It wasn’t all champagne and awards nights, and so on and so on. A throaty-voiced Ruth Wilson conveys Maitlis’ doubts with skill, even if this final hour is narratively the weakest of the lot.
Among the rest of the cast, Joanna Scanlan is predictably great as Amanda Thirsk, the prince’s adoring personal secretary who makes all the wrong decisions. She’s the Gary to his Veep, and it’s painful but addictive to watch every admiring word out of her mouth unwittingly become another nail in his coffin. Honor Swinton-Byrne is a stand-out as an empathetic Princess Beatrice, while Claire Rushbrook’s natural likability does more to humanise Sarah Ferguson than any of her ‘fun’ TV cameos ever did. Rushbrook’s Fergie is a tricky customer, offering the prince her undying support while delicately hinting that she knows where the bodies are buried. Does that explain why Andrew would accept a gift of £150k from Epstein to pay off her debts? Why the divorced couple continue to live together in great comfort at the Royal Lodge at Windsor? Their scenes together are some of the most intriguing, and bear the most resemblance to an episode of The Crown.
Tonally, it’s far less sober and painfully earnest than Scoop, which took its big learning moments from the fridge magnet school of philosophy. The tally of “fuck”s alone would rival a Richard Curtis comedy. It is comedic at times, largely thanks to the skill of Sheen and Scanlan, but doesn’t appear to have an appetite for satire.
Overall, A Very Royal Scandal suffers from the same problem as any dramatization of a televised event – we’ve already seen the best bits. Royal completists and fans of Michael Sheen’s extraordinary screen transformations into real-life figures will dine well though. As will anybody who sat through season six of The Crown and found themselves thinking ‘if only this were three episodes longer’.
A Very Royal Scandal is out now on Prime Video.
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