A Very Royal Scandal is far too genteel for its own good, despite Ruth Wilson and Michael Sheen’s best efforts
“I’m going to blow this out of the water”
Some would argue that one drama about Prince Andrew and his catastrophic Newsnight interview would be too much, never mind two in the same year. A Very Royal Scandal arrives on Amazon Prime a good few months after Netflix’s Scoop, although it does take another route into the story. Based on Emily Maitlis’ Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News and with Maitlis credited as an executive producer, it gives short shrift to former Newsnight editor’s Sam McAlister’s version of events, focusing instead on deeper looks at the lives of Maitlis and the prince both approaching and after the infamous interview.
It is positioned as a spiritual successor to A Very English Scandal and A Very British Scandal but as a far more recent piece of “history”, it struggles to match up with those. It is of course trailed with the “based on real events with scenes that have been fictionalised and adapted for dramatic purposes” disclaimer but whilst the Maitlis scenes might have a touch more veritas than might usually be the case, the numerous scenes with Prince Andrew and his immediate family (none of the wider Royal Family are featured) are entire works of fiction, leaving the show fatally imbalanced as it seeks to present a powerful version of its truth.
For the initial two episodes, the first focusing on procuring the interview and the second featuring its recording, there’s not so much of a problem. A plummily voiced Ruth Wilson gives us a restless Maitlis, chafing at right-wing papers criticising her eye-rolls at Tory politicians and desperate for the biggest stories. And a no less fruity Michael Sheen offers a frightfully self-important Andrew, cosseted by private secretary Amanda Thirsk (Joanna Scanlan) as he’s drawn ever closer to the ever-growing Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Convinced he needs to put his case across and sure he can control the narrative, the die is cast.
But writer Jeremy Brock goes way off-piste in the final episode which meanders horribly, as Maitlis is shown to have a crisis of conscience over not doing enough for the victims but is also experiencing trauma from having been previously stalked. And a rapidly fast-forwarding timeline sees Andrew’s self-delusion slowly punctured with each self-perceived indignity he suffers from being stripped of duties to being strong-armed into accepting that a deal will be made with accuser Virginia Giuffre. It becomes less a drama than a dramatisation of a Wikipedia page.
There’s a quality cast around Wilson and Sheen which means it is often highly watchable whilst taking its merry time. Lydia Leonard’s editor Esme Wren is all cool professionalism, Sam Troughton glowers effectively as palace spy Donal McCabe and Alex Jennings is perfection as the icy Sir Edward Young, the Queen’s private secretary who manipulates things ever so effectively. At the same time, Scanlan’s Thirsk gets a rough deal and the usually excellent Claire Rushbrook is an awkwardly depicted Sarah Ferguson, showing her scoffing biscuits feels unnecessarily mean-spirited from all concerned. Scoop at least had the brevity to be more of a thriller and much more insight into the inner workings of current affairs journalism, this just feels a lot more speculatively intrusive, particularly for the female characters it portrays who aren’t executive producers.
