‘Scoop’ vs ‘A Very Royal Scandal’: A Deep Dive into the Portrayal of Prince Andrew’s Newsnight Interview

It’s definitely an interview we’ll never forget for those of us who watched Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview in 2019 (which, let’s face it, was most of us). I fear the phrases “Pizza Express in Woking” and “it was just a straightforward shooting weekend” are etched into my brain forever. And five years after it aired, we have been given not one but two dramatizations of this interview a few months apart. The first to be released was the Netflix film Scoop (2024, dir. Philip Martin) in April, which I watched on the first day of its release because a girl doesn't miss a new Keeley Hawes project. And the second, A Very Royal Scandal (2024, dir. Julian Jarrold), was released in September as a miniseries on Amazon Prime. Naturally, there has been a lot of discussion about how it’s been slightly excessive to have two projects about the same event released months apart, so I wanted to take some time to delve deeper into these two projects to compare them and see what they each have to offer, and whether it’s worth your time watching both if you’re interested. I do just have to say that neither of these projects are outstanding pieces of work, they are no All the President’s Men. But they are decent and are the first dramatic representations of one of the most important interviews of our time, which makes them more than significant enough to look at respectively.

Despite both focusing on the same event, the two projects offer a variety of different perspectives on the infamous interview. A Very Royal Scandal (hereafter AVRS) is definitely focused on providing ‘a whole picture’ idea of the interview in its three episode structure – the lead up to the interview, during it, and the aftermath. It privileges the experiences of Emily Maitlis (Ruth Wilson) and Prince Andrew (Michael Sheen) especially, but also includes that of Sarah Ferguson, Amanda Thirsk (Andrew’s private secretary), the Queen’s private secretary and both Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, just to name a few. Of course, because this is a series of three one hour episodes, the detail its able to go into about all of these people and their involvement with the interview is greater than that of Scoop which is only 90 minutes long. AVRS is able to give light to those tensions between Andrew’s private secretary and the Queen’s private secretary, as well as the tensions within the Royal Family itself about how they’re going to deal with Andrew’s mess. It also gives greater representation to Andrew’s mentality and how he handles the accusations against him than compared to Scoop. As far as Maitlis is concerned, given that she is the executive producer of the series, it’s no surprise that the work she put into the interview takes primary focus compared to the rest of the Newsnight team. It is particularly interesting to see how she deals with the interview in its aftermath once the bomb has exploded – it’s a huge win for her and the BBC, and for investigative journalism as a whole, but we see her deal with online abuse, resurfacing fears in light of being a victim of stalking, in addition to a kind of guilt that she feels for being the one who “took down a member of the monarchy”, in the words of the press. It’s this introspection, as well as that of Andrew and his family, that make projects like this worthwhile because it fills in the gaps of what we don’t know – how these people at the centre of the calamity were most likely feeling behind the scenes.

Wilson and Sheen as Maitlis and the Prince.

As for Scoop, however, the film is much more interested in centralising the work of the women involved with the interview, especially Sam McAlister’s work (who wrote the book on which the film is based) in getting this interview secured for Newsnight, following the work of Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes) and Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) alongside it; it doesn’t provide much space to explore Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell), which I would argue is a strength of Scoop – this is a story about the hard work of the women who made this unprecedented interview happen.

In this way, the film does a great job of highlighting the sheer determination of McAlister (Billie Piper) to book this interview with Prince Andrew on the subject of his ‘Pitch at Palace’ initiative and his relationship with Epstein – the latter being a red line the Palace were unsure about crossing until McAlister was able to persuade Thirsk that it would be a good subject to approach because it’s “a problem that won’t go away.” It’s this agency, forward thinking and hard grafting on behalf of McAlister that is completely ignored in AVRS. If you were to only watch AVRS, you would have absolutely no idea how integral Sam McAlister was in getting this interview secured. Scoop is definitely a more refreshing look into investigative journalism by exploring this role of the Booker more than the front facing journalists we’re used to seeing onscreen. Not that these journalists and their work are not important or interesting, but it’s compelling to get a different perspective. Scoop is able to uncover how easy it is for the work of those like Sam to easily get side-lined and forgotten (“Why don’t they see me as one of them?”), and how in reality they are some of the unsung heroes of journalism.

Piper as Sam McAlister, Newsnight's 'booker'.

With all of these different points of view on display in the two projects, what both of them do very well is build up the anticipation heading up to and during the interview, creating a thrilling atmosphere that anticipates what Prince Andrew is going to say next even though we already know; the shock at hearing the words that come out of his mouth never lessens no matter how many times you watch the interview in its various representations.

One person/character I enjoyed seeing representation of in both projects was Amanda Thirsk (as mentioned earlier, Prince Andrew’s private secretary), who was responsible for negotiating the interview on behalf of Andrew with Newsnight. Joanna Scanlan plays Thirsk in AVRS and Keeley Hawes in Scoop, and both give brilliant, fully realised interpretations of Thirsk – a woman we know very little about. We come to understand the significance of her role and how she had to unfairly take the blame for the way Andrew dealt with the interview as though he was a totally defenceless puppet. Scoop certainly gives Thirsk more dignity and a more forgiving ending than AVRS – Scoop subtly shows how she was not responsible for Andrew’s conduct but put in the work with Newsnight in order to give him a chance to explain himself. I think this is particularly important, as it encourages us to take away the blame wrongly laid at a woman’s feet, and instead position us to see that it was Andrew who dug himself that hole. As Keeley Hawes said in an interview promoting Scoop: “[Amanda] did what she did for the right reasons, for good reason from her point of view, in encouraging him to give the interview because she wanted everyone to see him through her eyes... She didn’t put the words in his mouth, he did that all by himself… it could have gone so well.” (Harper’s Bazaar UK interview)

Hawes as Thirsk.

and Scanlan as Thirsk.

In getting slightly more technical about AVRS and Scoop, I wanted to touch a little on the performances and how convincing they are. Personally, I think Ruth Wilson as Maitlis in AVRS is much more convincing than Gillian Anderson in Scoop. Both the hair and makeup departments did a great job on physically transforming the two actresses into Maitlis, but it’s Wilson who goes on to fully embody her in mannerisms and especially her voice. Anderson’s voice just sounds more like her own instead of taking on Maitlis’ distinctive low register. As for Prince Andrew, Michael Sheen and Rufus Sewell equally give exceptional performances. They both look quite different as Andrew, but they both give off that air of arrogance and curtness that has come to define him.

Anderson as Maitlis.

In turning to discuss the focus each project gives to Epstein’s victims, who are the primary reason Andrew needed to have this interview in the first place given the accusations against him and his relationship with Epstein, AVRS focuses more significantly on the women who were subject to Epstein’s abuse. In the final episode, it is Maitlis who talks about abuse and how women are responsible for telling their story over and over again only for people to question “did he? Did he really?”; and that it was the Prince’s arrogance that irked her, he was only ever thinking of himself. In the series’ final shot, the camera brings our attention back to Giuffre by zooming in on the infamous photo of her and Andrew, leaving our attention isolated on her. It’s unlikely that we will ever know the truth of what occurred between Andrew and Giuffre given the financial settlement that was reached between them, but Scoop and A Very Royal Scandal remind us that no one is above the law, even if you’re the son of the Queen.

Both end up telling the story of this interview from different perspectives, each providing more detail in areas that the other may lack, making them both worthy of watching. The main takeaways from both, however, reiterate the determination, intelligence, strength and power of women, whether individually or as a collective.

Disclaimer: I do not own these images.