When I was 12 years old, getting up at 8 am to go to school, the only thing worth watching on TV at the time was a show on CBBC called Scoop. It followed Shaun Williamson with his puppet sidekick Hacker T Dog as journalists trying to get a story. It was God awful but there was nothing else on so I continued to watch. Over time, like a drug I’d have to take every day, I started to like it.
I have fond memories of Scoop, hence I was rather heartbroken when I learnt that Netflix’s latest feature was not a big-screen adaptation of my favourite childhood show but a docudrama about a paedophile.
Scoop, the film, is at its best when it shows the orchestration of the Prince Andrew Newsnight interview, the state of the BBC at the time, the interview itself and its aftermath. The insights into Sam McAlister’s personal life and Andrew’s relationship with his secretary Amanda Thirsk are unneeded. If those scenes were cut however, Scoop’s runtime would be quartered, which brings up the question of whether this story should’ve been told.
Based on inside accounts, Scoop dramatizes the efforts of news editor Sam McAlister (Billie Piper) to secure a televised interview with the Duke of York Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell). McAlister convinces Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) to conduct the interview, presenting several damning allegations concerning Andrew’s friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. When everything is finalised and the Duke and Emily finally sit before the cameras, they make British history.
Despite how well written, acted and made Scoop is I don’t want to break it down and assess its key components. Most people aren’t informed enough to assess the historical accuracy of Oppenheimer but almost everyone’s seen that Newsnight interview. The historical inaccuracies in Scoop will be recognised by many because it happened less than half a decade ago.
The big issue with Scoop, for me anyway, is that it tells the story as we know it today, which for all we know is still going. The film ends with a sense of closure and victory, which is a bad choice because we know the affair ended with anything but.
The interview destroyed any plausible deniability Andrew had as well as his public image and made him the elephant in the room that is the royal family. Beyond that, Andrew didn’t face any direct consequences for doing what we all know he did. The stories told by his victims were invalidated by the case of Virginia Giuffre, the most vocal of Andrew’s alleged victims, as it was settled out of court.
That’s the story so far. No one can say where it’ll go from there but if it progresses, Scoop will be at risk of becoming outdated.
All its scenes showing Andrew by himself, behind closed doors, as great as they are, can be totally negated by new information. Siimilar to The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer, a biopic released only a year before the Milwaukee cannibal was killed in prison.
My point is I think this story was told far too soon. Scoop may have the look and layout of a comprehensive biopic but it has the integrity of a tabloid TV Movie.
This should’ve been the first act of a 4-hour film chronicling Andrew’s life or the first episode of a multi-season show.
I can’t fault it as a piece of filmmaking; Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell knock it out of the park with their performances, the build-up to the interview is great and the interview itself plays like a scene in a war room.
In terms of technical competence, I must give it 9 out of 10 but as a narrative, I give it 5. It just doesn’t need to exist.
A month from now, if I hear about Scoop again, this is what I’ll think of…
Duffhood 