Sensational dramas about the Duke of York are rather like London buses: you wait five years for one, and then two come along at once. Amazon Prime’s three-part series, A Very Royal Scandal, which focuses on the notorious Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew, is released tomorrow. The show follows the perspective of both the journalist Emily Maitlis (Ruth Wilson) and, more surprisingly, Andrew himself, in another of the ever-chameleonic Michael Sheen’s superb performances. A Very Royal Scandal follows Netflix’s depiction of the interview, Scoop, which was released earlier this year.
Scoop portrayed him, in Rufus Sewell’s latex-encased performance, as a buffoon out of his depth and blind to the consequences of his folly until it was too late. A Very Royal Scandal takes a more considered approach, daring to hint that Andrew was actively bad, rather than just a privileged imbecile who was easily led astray by those around him. It’s notable, incidentally, that the BBC – who produced the other two dramas in the ‘Scandal’ series – did not go anywhere near this particular hot potato.
Prince Andrew’s expulsion from public life is not something that anyone apart from his immediate family is likely to be exercised about. It would be more surprising if anyone were to watch A Very Royal Scandal and worry that he has been somehow maligned. Certainly, the charge sheet against him, as presented on screen, is a long and unimpressive one. It features him barking ‘Fuck off!’ at any underlings unfortunate enough to cross his path in their everyday work, and a queasy encounter with Jeffrey Epstein in which the Duke has to ask for money to pay off his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson’s debts. In return, in the show, Epstein silkily demands that Andrew remain his ‘guest’ at his New York residence for several days, during which time the disgraced financier exploited his royal connection to the hilt.
The presentation of the rest of the royals is hardly complimentary either. The only members of ‘the Firm’ to appear on screen are Fergie – portrayed as an emotional and thin-skinned lush who is nevertheless kind-hearted underneath her absurdity – and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, depicted as torn between their love for their father and their horror at the compromising situation that he has embroiled them all in.
Nonetheless, these are more sympathetic interpretations than the main royal establishment receives, portrayed on screen by the ever-excellent Alex Jennings as Sir George Young, the Queen’s private secretary. It is Sir George who gets most of the best and most memorable lines – at one point saying ‘we find ourselves here, in a clusterfuck worthy of the Kardashians’. It also shows him exhibiting an impressive degree of cold ruthlessness, summarily firing Andrew’s private secretary Amanda Thirsk for daring to agree to the humiliating interview in the first place.
Arguments between King Charles and Andrew are shown, albeit only from the latter’s perspective, with the-then Prince of Wales telling his younger brother not to do the interview. He calls him a ‘mummy’s boy’ and says his actions will ‘damage the Firm’s reputation’ – accurate advice that will only send the Duke into paroxysms of rage. The film suggests that the only reason why Newsnight were allowed to film at all was because the late Queen was on her younger son’s side – ‘whatever Andrew wants’ – and the consequences of this rare lapse in judgement proved to be epochal to this day.
Feuds run deep within the royal family, and Prince Andrew’s banishment to reputational Siberia is neatly summarised in the last lines of the programme, delivered with relish by Jennings. When Andrew, facing oblivion, cries ‘What do I do? Tell me!’, the courtier suavely but viciously replies: ‘You live with the consequences of your actions, sir.’ Only the most generous, or blinkered, would not suggest that the wider royal family lives with the embarrassment every day. A Very Royal Scandal is a piquant reminder of this, and one that will resonate with its millions of viewers.
Amazon’s dramatisation of the Newsnight interview between Emily Maitlis and Prince Andrew shows Royal family life in all its dysfunction
Welcome to Emily Maitlis: The Movie. Well, to be accurate, A Very Royal Scandal (Amazon Prime Video) is a three-part TV series, but you get the idea. A dramatisation of her famous Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew, The tone is summed up by a US interviewer who says to Maitlis: “Tell us, Emily, how does it feel to take down a member of the monarchy?”
This is the second recreation of the 2019 encounter that proved so disastrous for the Duke of York, and it definitely feels like one too many. Why are we seeing this again when anyone who wants to revisit the actual interview can do so on YouTube? Who cares about the planning meetings and the editing and Maitlis worrying about what to wear (she decides on trousers and “sexy heels”)?
The first drama, Netflix’s Scoop, was adapted from a memoir by Newsnight booker Sam McAlister and made her the plucky heroine. A Very Royal Scandal is executive produced by Maitlis, and poor Sam barely gets a look-in.
The focus on the BBC side is purely Maitlis, at work and at home. She is played by Ruth Wilson, who is less fun in the role than Scoop’s Gillian Anderson. She mimics the presenter mainly by dropping her voice to a baritone, which sounds very odd until you get used to it.
This version of Maitlis is a political animal - “Guess what, the ERG are destroying Theresa May’s EU withdrawal!” is not a line you’ll find in many Amazon Prime dramas - and a forensic journalist, but the drama is at pains to show that she’s not the ice queen we saw in Scoop. Instead, she’s a Bridget Jones-style mess until the camera starts rolling, forever flustered and juggling her home life (her husband is portrayed as useless), sitting in BBC meetings with pink curlers in her hair.
Episode one deals with bagging the interview, aided by Prince Andrew’s well-meaning but hapless aide, Amanda Thirsk (Joanna Scanlan). Episode two is the interview itself, which most of us can recite by heart now; we learn from this retelling that Andrew’s most attention-grabbing claims - the inability to sweat, the Pizza Express in Woking - did not feature in the original interview, but were added afterwards at Andrew’s request. Episode three is the aftermath, as Andrew’s life falls apart and Maitlis is celebrated.
Where Scoop was made as entertainment, an underdog story paced as a thriller, A Very Royal Scandal is more serious and wider in scope. It goes further into the allegations against Andrew, whom we see meeting Jeffrey Epstein, and the Palace’s attempts to protect him from legal action. When his team learn that he’s about to be served papers by Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers, they smuggle him out of the house at dawn in his pyjamas.
There are also more scenes of Royal family life in all its dysfunction. Michael Sheen makes little attempt to physically inhabit the role but leans into Andrew’s petulant, unpleasant side. The first words we hear him utter, to an unfortunate lackey, are: “F--- off.” Andrew is a pompous mummy’s boy who can’t let a day go by without reminding everyone that he served in the Falklands, and is driven by a need for money to pay off his ex-wife’s debts (Claire Rushbrook plays Sarah Ferguson as a pathetic character).
His daughters are sweet and steadfastly loyal, but Charles - not seen on camera - is heard to be furious about the interview. Andrew is furious back: “Damaging the Firm’s reputation? He can talk, Mr Tampon. I fought for the country, all he did was talk to the roses and shag his f---ing mistress.”
The zingiest lines go to the late Queen’s private secretary, Sir Edward Young (Alex Jennings), although only he can say how accurately he is portrayed, and whether he is really the type to say: “The Royal Family is unstable enough without one of them being accused of kiddie-fiddling!” while describing the interview as “a clusterf--- worthy of the Kardashians”.
These scenes, perhaps because they are reminiscent of The Crown and contain flashes of humour, are more watchable than the self-congratulatory moments with Maitlis and her BBC colleagues. Of course, Maitlis has now left the corporation, and has the opportunity with this script to get a few things off her chest. When her eye-rolling during a political interview leads to a complaint, she huffs that “good old Humphrys” and “good old Paxo” wouldn’t have been pulled up on the same thing.
As with Scoop, there is a walk-on role for her dog. Perhaps we’ll get a third iteration of this story soon, from the whippet’s point of view.
“A Very Royal Scandal” examines the life-changing scandal that had Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, Queen Elizabeth’s second son, gamble in a famous hour-long sitdown on the BBC to tell his side of a sex-trafficking controversy involving Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious convicted and dead-by-suicide sexual predator.
His reputation and position destroyed, the Prince faced subsequent legal charges from the woman who accused him of sexual assault and Epstein of trafficking her as a minor. A court case was averted with a reported $16.3 million settlement.
All that and more is in the fallout of the televised 2019 duel between Michael Sheen’s Andrew and BBC interviewer Emily Maitlis (Ruth Wilson).
Sheen began “Scandal” with a deep dive into Andrew. “It’s a complicated story in all kinds of ways, a series of events surrounding someone that people feel that they’re very familiar with and kind of know and have strong feelings and opinions about,” Sheen, 55, said in a Zoom interview.
“To be able to portray that, in a way that allows an audience to potentially understand things in a different way, or see it from a slightly different point of view, not to necessarily get people to feel that what has happened or not is justified or excused or anything like that, but just to be surprising.”
Sheen knows the parameters of playing real people — he’s done British Prime Minister Tony Blair (three times!) and TV icon David Frost.
That means, “Staying true (as much as you can) to real events and your responsibility towards portraying a real person. To lift the veil somehow and allow people to feel like you’re revealing something behind the scenes.
“That’s always a very satisfying experience for an audience. But to portray this man? It’s simply a hall of mirrors.”
That’s because with Prince Andrew, “So much is behind closed doors. So much is hidden away. And what is ‘public’ is so controlled and stage managed a lot of the time.
“Then you hear gossip, hearsay, and it’s quite difficult to sift between fact and fiction. Particularly, obviously, in the events that we are portraying in this story where there’s a mystery at the heart of this.
“There’s a mystery at the heart this character for me to play,” he added. “I don’t know what he did or didn’t do beyond a certain point. Yet I have to play it.
“I had to make choices to know what’s going on underneath. Is he lying? Hiding things? All that kind of stuff.
“Obviously, ambiguity and mystery is a big part of it.”
“A Very Royal Scandal” streams all 3 episodes on Prime Video Sept. 19
