06/04/24

Netflix

What is the purpose of dramatising recent news events unless it’s to shine a different light on them? Scoop, directed by Philip Martin, doesn’t do that. Instead, it’s a pretty straightforward retelling of something we can all remember: Prince Andrew’s 2018 car-crash interview on BBC’s Newsnight.

Although it’s very watchable, the only fresh thing we’re actually offered here is a little look at some behind-the-scenes admin, and – frankly – that’s not enough. Based on Samantha McAlister’s memoir, her role as the ‘booker’ is almost laughably prominent. I’m sure she was very good at her job, but I don’t really care. “Person does the work they’re paid to do” isn’t much of a revelation. Nobody’s watching this because they’re interested in a “brilliant” TV producer. Self-aggrandising Sam (Billie Piper) gets the bus to work, eats kebabs and relies on her mum for childcare. Am I supposed to take something away from this?

We don’t get any original insights into Prince Andrew’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein; we don’t learn anything new about his sexual exploitation of trafficked women. (I’m not calling him a paedophile because that’s not what he is. ‘Sexual predator’ and ‘rapist’ are the correct words. Abuse of women is bad enough; we don’t have to call it something else.) We don’t glimpse his reaction to the fall-out. We do see how attached he is to his teddy bears, which is amusing but hardly illuminating. The only vaguely unexplored territory covered is the impact on Prince Andrew’s aide, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), who is portrayed here as a naïve and trusting woman, believing both Andrew’s assertions of innocence and McAlister’s assurances that this interview will be good for him. A brief moment with Andrew’s daughter, Beatrice (Charity Wakefield), also offers a little much-needed emotion, her lip quivering as she counters her father’s dismissal of Twitter (“I don’t look at that”) with a muted, sad-eyed, “I do.”

Rufus Sewell’s and Gillian Anderson’s impersonations of the key players are spot-on, although credit for that must be shared by the costume and make-up designers (Matthew Price and Kirstin Chalmers). The likenesses are uncanny. I just don’t know what they’re for.

I can’t help feeling that this is a pointless exercise. The actual interview – in all its startling horror – is available for anyone to see, so why bother watching a facsimile of it?

2.8 stars

Susan Singfield