There is one person who comes out terribly well from the
Netflix film Scoop - Sam McAlister. It's no surprise, given that it’s based on the book she wrote about how Newnight secured its bombshell interview with Prince Andrew back in 2019. And to be fair, she absolutely deserves the credit - what she did in persuading the royal to give that extraordinary interview is nothing short of astonishing. But what might shock some who watch the dramatisation of how it all played out is how badly some of her colleagues are made to look. There is much made of how Sam is a single mum who relies on her mother for childcare and is a regular customer at her local kebab shop, all of which rather sets her apart from the other members of the Newsnight team. In the film several are portrayed as bullies who openly sneer at her downmarket news sense - right up until she lands the best story the show has ever had. I’m guessing Sam is on a bit of a revenge mission for how they made her feel at the time, at one point admitting: "I spend half my time hoping not to be sacked and the other half wishing they'd just get it over with - why can’t they just see me as one of them?" And it's not just the back-room mob. Emily Maitlis , played by Gillian Anderson , is shown to be an exceptional interviewer but is also painted as being cold, tricksy and a bit unwilling to share the limelight when the plaudits are being handed out. Billie Piper is among the cast of Netflix's Scoop ( Image: PETER MOUNTAIN/NETFLIX) Perhaps the real Emily, who has since left the
BBC, will be happy with this portrayal? After all she's involved in another dramatisation,
Amazon Prime's A Very Royal Scandal, so will have ample opportunity to show what went on from her own perspective. Don't be so sure - one PR pal told me after watching Scoop: "She’s going to be furious." In reality, Newsnight booker Sam ( Billie Piper ) spent more than a year buttering up Prince Andrew's private secretary Amanda Thirsk, played in the film by Keeley Hawes . All that laborious groundwork is glossed over a bit in Scoop, but we do see Sam using her powers of persuasion a few times on poor, deluded Amanda. She genuinely thinks her boss Andy is a fine fellow who should easily charm us into believing he's nothing like his sex offender pal Jeffrey Epstein. But she has to be pushed and pushed and pushed. Without Sam, this hour of incredible television would never have happened. And then, as you watch Anderson being Maitlis, it's also clear that without her brilliance as an interviewer, it could all have gone so horribly wrong. As viewers are correctly reminded by Newsnight editor Esme Wren (Romala Garai): "Make no mistake, if we don’t get the tone right the story won’t be him, it’ll be us." There is a lot to marvel at along the way. Who knew that Princess Beatrice accompanied Andrew, played by Rufus Sewell , to his early meetings with Sam, Emily and Esme? She is shown to be quite instrumental in convincing him he's never going to shed his terrible image, saying that what she’s read about him on
Twitter is "far stronger" that anything Sam has mentioned. She's joined by the likes of Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell in the film ( Image: PETER MOUNTAIN/NETFLIX) Another key moment comes when his mother, the late
Queen, apparently waves the interview through by telling her favourite son that she trusts his judgement. At one point the deluded royal mutters: "It’s hard to imagine how I can turn it around…" Luckily he didn’t actually trust his own judgement, otherwise we’d never have heard about his inability to sweat, his time spent not at the bar in posh nightclub Tramp or his trip with Beatrice to the Woking Pizza Express. We knew all this from the original interview but there is additional jaw-dropping dialogue in Scoop - like when Andrew quips he doesn’t know why everyone is so obsessed by his friendship with Epstein when "I know Jimmy Savile so much better". And to hammer home his claim that he took a bath rather than watch the pre-recorded interview go out on TV, we’re treated to a shot of his naked body as he climbs out. Eeeuugghhh! It’s been asked whether it’s a good idea to make a drama out of an interview which was so entirely gripping. I don’t think this ever had a chance of topping the excitement of the real thing. But hearing how it all came about is still fascinating- making for a hugely entertaining watch. And perhaps when it comes to who deserves the most praise, we’ll just have to accept that recollections may vary… Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat ,
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