David Farnor | On 22, Sep 2024

“I don’t need your permission to do an interview. I fought in the Falklands!” Those are the words of Prince Andrew (Michael Sheen) in A Very Royal Scandal, Amazon Prime Video’s series reliving the interview the Andrew did go on to do with Newsnight in 2019. The resulting car crash will still be fresh in the mind of many viewers, not least because only a few months ago it was already recounted in the Netflix film Scoop. The difference between that and this three-part drama is that it takes time to step beyond the interview itself. While Scoop reminded us of the importance of holding power to account, A Very Royal Scandal asks what happens when we do.

Written by Jeremy Brock, the series distinguishes itself from Scoop – which was based on a book by producer Sam McAlister (played by Billie Piper) – by instead dramatising events from the perspective of Emily Maitlis, who exec-produces the project and is played here by Ruth Wilson. Where Scoop was a thriller, celebrating the achievement of journalists punching up to those in authority, this is a thoughtful, probing examination of events that focuses as much on the aftermath as the interview itself and the build-up to it.

That gives the drama its effective structure, although the first hour suffers from the over-familiarity of what reportedly took place – the pressures on the BBC, the awkward pre-meet between Maitlis and Andrew and their respective teams. But there’s room here for more nuance and detail. We get an insight into Maitlis’ frustration after being criticised for a viral eye-roll during a Brexit interview. We also get more insight into the family life of Andrew – complete with his blindly loyal live-in ex, Fergie (Claire Rushbrook), who has debts that lead Andrew to meet Jeffrey Epstein, and his daughters, Beatrice (Honor Swinton Byrne) and Eugenie (Sofia Oxenham), who are innocent collateral dragged into a mess not of their making.

The sympathy for Beatrice and Eugenie is deftly portrayed and sincerely earned by Honor Swinton Byrne and Sofia Oxenham, and it’s that kind of nuance that gives A Very Royal Scandal – framed as a follow-up to historical dramas A Very British Scandal and a Very English Scandal – some intriguing and thought-provoking complexity. We pity Joanna Scanlan’s cluelessly faithful assistant, Amanda, who is confident Andrew will ace the interview, and we’re reminded of Queen Elizabeth II’s decision to pay for Andrew’s legal costs through the always-excellent Alex Jennings as her acerbic private secretary, attempting to mitigate the impact of the scandal on the crown.

Whether or not Andrew is guilty isn’t explicitly discussed, although director Julian Jarrold (The Crown) plays with our perceptions with an ambiguous flashback scene to Andrew’s sweaty (or not) alleged dance in the nightclub with 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, which could be imagined or recalled or neither. (The closing titles note that the out-of-court settlement was reportedly in the region of £12 million, without any mention of liability.)

Does a non-admission of guilt mean that someone is automatically guilty? That’s one of the challenging questions left deliberately hanging in the air by Brock’s script. Jarrold gives both his leads room to play with those unanswered mysteries, and the result is a series that knowingly swerves in tone and insight as our own sympathies are pushed and prodded.

Michael Sheen looks less the part than Rufus Sewell did in Scoop, but he drills into Andrew’s curious character over the course of the three hours. He brings out the petulant privilege of the prince, but digs underneath that layer of arrogant entitlement as panic and fear begin to prick the surface. Maitlis, after the interview, describes Andrew as “weirdly guileless”, and Sheen brilliantly captures that strange quality, portraying Andrew as someone who thinks he’s charming even when he’s astonishingly frank and rude to those around him – it’s a performance of a performance, one perched between comedy and tragedy, whether it’s his realisation that he will never be free of the accusations or his fumbling cluelessness about the very idea of consequences for what he says or does. Whether he’s guilty or not, there’s a growing sense of regret in Sheen’s understated screen presence – which still leaves us puzzling, fascinated, over both why he agreed to do the interview and why he initially thought it was a success.

Opposite Sheen, Wilson is fantastic as Maitlis, gradually moving past the distractingly deep voice to also explore the contradictions and uncertainty on her side of the fence. Whether she’s wearing curlers and wondering if the interview will be called off at the last minute or she’s poised on camera with a piercing stare, she’s magnetic to watch as we get the impression that Maitlis is trying to work out exactly what her job is and what her responsibilities are. “How does it feel to take down a member of the monarchy?” she’s asked on the news, after the fact, and there’s a wonderful moment where she’s wondering if that’s what she’s done and if that’s what she should do. Glimpses of her domestic life emphasise her focus on work, and conversations with producer Esme Wren (Lydia Leonard) reveal both her annoyance at not being able to secure top-flight interviewees post-Andrew and her frustration that their interview isn’t the same as justice in a courtroom.

It’s in these introspective moments that Wilson’s reflective performance elevates A Very Royal Scandal from what could have been a self-congratulatory affair into something more. Recalling her own experience with a stalker, and how interviews with victims unfairly put the onus on them to relive their trauma for change to happen, she reminds us that this story isn’t about her and Andrew at all, but about Epstein’s victims, such as Giuffre. It’s a sobering moment of awareness that puts the achievements, limitations, impact and importance of journalism into wider perspective – and, if a further film or show is ever made about this subject, makes it clear that it should be focused on the victims’ voices.

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