Netflix just released Scoop (The great exclusive), the film that recreates the gestation and the baubles of the interview that the BBC gave to Prince Andrew in which he had to give explanations about his relationship with the tycoon Jeffrey Epstein, arrested for sexual abuse of minors. It is the most watched interview in the history of British public television and, after the conversation he had with journalist Emily Maitlis, the Queen stripped her son of all royal titles. The Duke of York was in evidence, awkwardly arguing his links with a sex offender and the relationships he allegedly had with a minor on three occasions.
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The interview took place in 2019, when the Epstein scandal broke massively. It is not about reconstructing the televised conversation in the program Newsnight, but everything that happened before and during the broadcast. “I spend half the time terrified that I’m going to be fired and the other half wishing it would all be over. I don’t understand why they don’t see me as one of them”, laments in the fiction Sam McAlister, the BBC producer who had the clinical eye to detect that the Duke of York would not take long to get out of that affair . But the program did not trust her, they belittled the case and rejected the way of working of her production company. McAlister becomes the driving force behind this Netflix remake because, despite the obstacles of his own peers, he was the link between public television and the crown.
In real life, McAlister no longer works for the BBC. He teaches negotiation classes at the prestigious London School of Economics and, in a way, the fiction uses his analytical skills to explain how the production company convinced the advisers and Prince Andrew himself to face the television Scoop it is based on the book that McAlister later published explaining everything that surrounded that interview. The film reconstructs how he prepared the ground to win the trust of the Duke of York’s communications cabinet. It also shows the way she took advantage of the scandal to press for the need for the interview. The film reproduces the previous meetings: “I don’t know why they are so scandalized by my friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Jimmy Savile knew him much better!” quips the Duke of York in a private conversation, recalling the notorious BBC pedophile who racked up hundreds of victims. Actress Gillian Anderson plays presenter Emily Maitlis and a characterful Rufus Sewell plays Prince Andrew. A Scoop there is a magnificent scene: the parallel reconstruction of each of the parties involved preparing the interview. Maitlis rehearses the questions and the Duke of York the excuses, in an excellent montage ahead of the recreation of the conversation we saw in 2019 on the BBC. Scoop it’s a well-told story and the opportunity to look through the keyhole and discover the interiors and the dos and don’ts of a historical television broadcast.
Mònica Planas Callol is a journalist and television critic
2024-04-06 21:24:06
#episode #Crown #explained
