Hotter than a sloppy Giuseppe from Pizza Express in Woking, Prince Andrew’s disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview left global audiences gobsmacked and rocked the monarchy. This taut, punchy, behind-the-scenes drama does a great job of unpicking the underdog story of how booking producer Sam McAlister (a scrappy Billie Piper) captured the scoop of the decade.
Director Philip Martin (a veteran of The Crown) gives Sam’s canny chasing of royal-related Jeffrey Epstein tip-offs a Working Girl (1988) vibe, as posh Newsnight journos scoff at the impossibility of an interview. And rather than spoofing Rufus Sewell’s bluff Prince Andrew, the film digs into the blinkered entitlement that led him and his naive private secretary Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes) to try changing his 'Randy Andy' reputation with a PR offensive.
