Scoop evaluation – Netflix’s drama about Prince Andrew is a humiliation of riches | Films | Entertainment | EUROtoday

Wishful pondering is an unforgiving mistress. The Duke of York learnt that in late 2019 after he agreed to an unique one-on-one interview with BBC Newsnight journalist Emily Maitlis to reply uncomfortable questions on his private ties to convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The meme-worthy hour of tv was meant to finish the social-media hubbub. Instead, shortly after the programme aired and the general public backlash reached fever pitch, Buckingham Palace introduced that the second son of Queen Elizabeth II could be stepping again from public duties.

Philip Martin’s terrific dramatisation of the negotiations that brokered the bombshell interview attracts inspiration from the memoir of Newsnight’s ­indomitable expertise booker, Sam McAlister, a perpetually caffeinated drive of nature wearing all black with leopard print boots and portrayed on display screen with gusto by Billie Piper.

“An hour of television can change everything. It’s like magic,” she guarantees Andrew (Rufus Sewell) and his non-public secretary, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes).

McAlister’s no-nonsense method to the job within the shadow of impending employees cuts creates friction with BBC colleagues.

“I’m not a snob but she’s very Daily Mail,” complains Newsnight deputy editor Stewart Maclean (Richard Goulding) to his cool-headed boss, Esme Wren (Romola Garai). Scriptwriters Peter Moffatt and Geoff Bussetil slowly tighten a knot of rigidity in stomachs as Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) rehearses questions, neatly intercut with the Duke sharpening his responses forward of the ill-fated showdown on two chairs, positioned six-feet aside within the South Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace.

“It’s like a gunfight in a western,” quips Maitlis dryly.

Scoop is a humiliation of efficiency riches led by Piper’s spirited single mom and the duelling double act of Anderson and a prosthetic-embellished Sewell, who leaves the interview with cheerful self-confidence (“I thought that all went very well!”).

Wishful pondering certainly.