‘A Very Royal Scandal’ Review: Ruth Wilson and Michael Sheen Revisit Prince Andrew’s ‘Newsnight’ Interview in Sturdy Amazon Miniseries

Amazon enthusiastically announced the Sept. 19 release date for A Very Royal Scandal with the declaration, “The critically acclaimed A Very … Scandal anthology is back!”

My primary questions include: Was “Scandal” included so that nobody would think A Very Royal Scandal was, in some way, a part of a franchise that perhaps started with 1996’s A Very Brady Sequel? Does your average television viewer even accept the existence of the A Very Dot Dot Dot Scandal franchise? And, perhaps most sincerely, even if we acknowledge that the A Very Dot Dot Dot Scandal franchise exists, what does it mean? What are the unifying characteristics between 2018’s A Very English Scandal, 2021’s A Very British Scandal and now A Very Royal Scandal, a trio of limited series without an overlapping character, star, writer or director?

The first two installments focused on pre-Internet kerfuffles stirred up by the British press, while A Very Royal Scandal is set in the past decade and practically features social media notifications as a main character. English and British were essentially acting two-handers, driven by the interplay between Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw and between Claire Foy and Paul Bettany, respectively while Royal lets stars Ruth Wilson and Michael Sheen interact for maybe 25 minutes in the middle of the series and that’s it. So I guess that more than anything, what distinguishes A Very Dot Dot Dot Scandal as a franchise is the presence of Blueprint Pictures as a producer, the three-episode running time and, perhaps, the quality, since all three entries are quite good.

Plus, the whole A Very Dot Dot Dot Scandal thing is a good distraction, because otherwise the only way to introduce A Very Royal Scandal to people is, “Hey, remember Netflix’s Scoop, the movie from April about the notorious Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew? This is that. Again. Totally. But they’re both entertaining, if you like that sort of thing.” The extra running time here — Scoop was a tight 103 minutes — lets the miniseries flesh out some of the main characters’ feelings before and after the main event, but if you find those additions more than a little unconvincing, they aren’t necessarily an asset. 

For those who haven’t seen Scoop, writer Jeremy Brock and director Julian Jarrold place the Newsnight interview in the middle of the second episode and dedicate the most enjoyable part of the series to the build-up. 

We meet Prince Andrew (Sheen), beloved second-born of the unseen reigning monarch and petulant brother to the unseen ascending monarch. Andrew, who drops reference to his military service in the Falklands into nearly every conversation, is a doting father to two daughters (Honor Swinton Byrne’s Beatrice and Sofia Oxenham’s Eugenie) and an amiable ex-husband to the brash but caring Fergie (Claire Rushbrook). He was also, at some point, a close chum to Jeffrey Epstein (an uncanny John Hopkins). As a result, he has weathered minor tempests tied to Epstein and even salacious accusations from one of Epstein’s victims. While he has avoided public comment on the subject, it arises again after Epstein’s death in 2019.

That brings us to Emily Maitlis (Wilson), Newsnight presenter and A Very Royal Scandal executive producer. Maitlis is widely revered, but she has faced her own challenges tied to a longtime stalker and, more recently, connected to accusations of bias stemming from an ill-timed, if thoroughly justified, on-air eye roll. After Epstein’s death, Maitlis is determined to get the first candid sit-down with Prince Andrew. She does. They discuss Pizza Express and perspiration. Ignominy ensues.

Because the interview is the interview and it wasn’t that long ago, A Very Royal Scandal, like Scoop before it, thrives as a prelude. The conversation itself is just two great performers reenacting clips you could watch on YouTube.

Using ticking clocks as an aggressive motif to build suspense — Maitlis is very digital, Prince Andrew’s entire world is analogue — A Very Royal Scandal focuses on developing the personalities of its two principal figures. It underlines their respective goals in the Newsnight special, setting them up for how they’ll react once it goes wide and the world reacts, which is the entirety of the third hour. 

As played by Wilson (and, actually, as interpreted by Gillian Anderson in Scoop), Maitlis is anxious and insecure with a tendency toward blundering, but with a remarkable ability to click into action under pressure. She’s infuriated by the state of modern journalism, she’s outraged by the way that female body language is sanctioned in a way nobody ever does with men — echoing the minor pockets of outrage at Kamala Harris’ reactions to Donald Trump in their debate — and she’s a calculating metaphorical chess player with an excellent team, led by Éanna Hardwicke’s Stewart MacLean and Clare Calbraith’s Sam McAlister (the Billie Piper role from Scoop).

As played by Sheen (very differently from Rufus Sewell’s more glowering Scoop take), Prince Andrew is all insulated insecurity, a man who has never gotten a straight answer from anybody in his life and still doesn’t feel good about himself. Andrew’s bumbling nature is done no favors by the padded suits and troweled makeup that never really transform Sheen, but abet the actor’s semi-comic approach. Andrew’s own team includes the Queen’s private secretary Edward Young (Alex Jennings), who only wants Andrew to vanish before Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, and Andrew’s own private secretary Amanda Thirsk (Joanna Scanlan), who is again treated as the myopic architect of this PR disaster.

For two hours, A Very Royal Scandal is tightly cut and smartly observed and strategized without being revelatory, despite Maitlis’ direct involvement. As talky as the drama is, Jarrold and production designer Noam Piper march the action through varied posh domestic spaces, giving viewers, who might think they know the plot and the settings, a rewarding sense of voyeurism. Even when we expect the direction to stick to the visual language of Newsnight, Jarrold opts instead for tight close-ups that bring out the best in both lead actors. 

The final hour, the one meant to reflect on the significance of the cultural moment and its aftermath, is faultier in its approach. Maitlis comes to understand that the broadcast may have made the story about her and marginalized Epstein’s victims in a series that, by its very nature, makes the story about Maitlis and marginalizes Epstein’s victims. The borderline hypocrisy plays as more self-serving than self-aware. It doesn’t help that while A Very Royal Scandal makes no gestures to vindicate Prince Andrew — he’s a hubristic doofus — the show seems increasingly sympathetic, in part because Eugenie and especially Beatrice are very present and Byrne and Oxenham engender a lot of empathy, and in part because the rest of the Firm/Crown is so beastly to Andrew, whether he deserves it or not. 

It leads to a disappointingly flat and speculative conclusion to a saga that has proven, for the second time this year, to be gripping. 

Now bring on A Very Brady Scandal.