It’s the film that promises to lift the lid on how Prince Andrew’s excruciating BBC interview with Emily Maitlis came to air.
And while the disgraced Duke’s now infamous car-crash cross-examination gripped the nation back in November 2019, behind the scenes brewed a secret feud.
Not that you would know from watching the new trailer of forthcoming Netflix film Scoop.
It opens with Gillian Anderson in character as Maitlis, walking on to the broadcast set at Buckingham Palace, juxtaposed with scenes of Billie Piper as Sam McAlister, the producer who negotiated Prince Andrew’s booking, rushing through the BBC’s busy newsroom.
Along with Newsnight’s former editor Esme Wren, played by Atonement’s Romola Garai, Scoop appears to tell the story of strong-minded career women working together to pull off what’s been dubbed the scoop of the decade.
Behind the scenes, however, to describe the rift as being a David and Goliath situation would be something of an understatement.
Billie Piper playing the producer Sam McAlister in a trailer for the Netflix drama Scoop
Sam McAlister tells ITV’s This Morning how she helped secure the Prince Andrew interview
McAlister was said to earn around a tenth of Maitlis’s £325,000 annual salary. While Maitlis would get taxis for work journeys, McAlister forked out for buses from the BBC’s central London HQ to Buckingham Palace for meetings with Prince Andrew’s former private secretary Amanda Thirsk, played by Keeley Hawes.
The disparity is perhaps all the more galling for single mum McAlister after Maitlis gave an in-depth interview to Radio Times in 2020 explaining how the story came about – not once mentioning McAlister.
In the piece – headlined ‘How we did it, Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis and Esme Wren on the Prince Andrew interview that shocked the world’, Wren, now editor of Channel 4 News, said: ‘We delivered a quite exceptional piece of journalism.
One former colleague said: ‘While those who work behind the scenes don’t always get credit, for Emily to go out there and not mention Sam in such a high-profile interview seems pretty unfair and wrong. Emily was on a significant salary and then you had Sam grafting behind the scenes on about £30,000 a year. Without Sam there would have been no Prince Andrew interview. It’s as simple as that.’
As for how she felt overlooked, a source said: ‘Sam tried to laugh at it. It seemed deeply baffling that two women would not mention another, far more junior woman in an interview where they were talking about how the interview came about.’
But friends of McAlister say the omission was a factor in her decision to leave the BBC in 2021 to go freelance and become a champion of behind-the-scenes production staff.
While at the BBC, McAlister reportedly spent months forming a relationship with Thirsk before holding a series of meetings with her at Buckingham Palace.
In her book which the film Scoop is based on – about the first time she met Andrew, played by Rufus Sewell in the film, McAlister wrote: ‘I hadn’t slept a wink all weekend. I’d been prepping, reading, talking to people who had met Prince Andrew to gauge how to approach him. Then I had been rehearsing possible questions in my head, thinking about what their sticking points would be, gaming every possible calibration and option.’
Maitlis, 53, has always refused to comment on the rift.
Sources say she was even invited to the book launch in 2022 – but didn’t show up.
One said: ‘Everyone in the book was of course invited but Emily wasn’t there.’
Some sources believe even subtle digs are made throughout the film, out on April 5.
Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis in a mocked-up Newsnight studio for the Netflix drama
Emily Maitlis, appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show on BBC1, is making her own show based on the interview, A Very Royal Scandal
One insider said: ‘Viewers won’t notice it but there are a few conversations that take place that, if you are aware of Emily trying to take credit from Sam, then you might notice things aren’t all well.’
After quitting the BBC, McAlister quickly began monetising her scoop, leaving Maitlis in her wake.
Now Maitlis is making her own show based on the interview, A Very Royal Scandal, currently in production for Netflix rival Amazon Prime. With money no object for either streaming giant, they have been battling it out for the ultimate Hollywood cast for their adaptations.
Scoop boasts an A-list roster – according to friends McAlister is ‘over the moon’ to have secured the The Crown’s Anderson — while A Very Royal Scandal has Hollywood’s Michael Sheen as the Prince. He recently said he doesn’t want his portrayal to be ‘hatchet job’: ‘Inevitably you want to bring humanity to the character.’
Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson will take the role of Maitlis and The Thick Of It’s Joanna Scanlan will play Thirsk in A Very Royal Scandal.
As for the scripts, Scoop boasts British playwright and screenwriter Peter Moffat with Philip Martin, who worked on seven episodes of The Crown in 2017, directing.
Maitlis has arguably gone one better for her three-part series, signing Bafta-nominated director Julian Jarrold, who headed up The Crown and worked on Sky Atlantic’s drama This England.
Then again all this may be academic if Maitlis fails to get her version, which is still in production, to the screen before Scoop’s April release date. Difficult to believe the public will want to watch exactly the same story again a month later.
Back at Broadcasting House, Maitlis has firmly won the support of her former Newsnight colleagues, with some of them apparently resenting how McAlister has ‘dared to place herself front and centre’ in the whole affair.
One can only imagine their anger if Scoop triumphs and McAlister gets the sweetest revenge.
