A Very Royal Scandal (Amazon Prime Video)
The Penguin (Sky Atlantic/Now)
M&S: Dress the Nation (ITV1) | ITVX
Nightsleeper (BBC One) | iPlayer
Presumably, screenwriter Jeremy Brock’s A Very Royal Scandal, a new three-part Amazon Prime drama about Newsnight’s 2019 interview with Prince Andrew, was engulfed in legal red tape – not least around the prince’s reported £12m payment to Virginia Giuffre, with no admission of liability. As with Netflix’s dramatisation of the same interview, Scoop, earlier this year, tones and sympathies skid about all over the place.
One moment Andrew (Michael Sheen) seems wreathed in carefully unspoken regret; the next he’s comically bumbling about like a regal Winnie-the-Pooh. Likewise, the mood of Newsnight interviewer Emily Maitlis, played by Ruth Wilson (Maitlis executive produces), ricochets between journalistic focus (sitting in pink curlers waiting for the go-ahead) and horror, when quizzed by a news channel: “How does it feel to take down a member of the monarchy?”
A Very Royal Scandal is much better than Scoop. Like Gillian Anderson as Scoop’s Maitlis, Wilson delivers a distractingly deep voice, but unlike Anderson she doesn’t go the full Beeb-ordained Darth Vader. Wilson also brings light and shade to a complicated woman in an ethically complicated situation. Here, Maitlis is depicted recalling her own stalker nightmare, and realising that it’s not about her, or Andrew: it’s about Giuffre (who alleges the prince had sex with her when she was 17) and myriad other victims of the late New York financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Likewise, Prince Andrew initially seems played for comedy, with bumptious self-eulogising about serving in the Falklands war (“All [Charles] did was talk to the roses and shag his fucking mistress”). As the net tightens, however, Sheen nails it, and panic finally pierces the lifelong entitlement. Elsewhere, Alex Jennings is superb as the Queen’s withering private secretary, Sir Edward Young; so too Sofia Oxenham as the anguished Princess Beatrice.
Chunks of the interview are re-enacted (Pizza Express in Woking and the rest), and this is where such dramas get labelled smug and self-aggrandising. I was also startled to see Epstein portrayed on screen (far too soon for that, surely?) Ultimately, this media/royalty clash is reminiscent of The Crown in its prime. Though hopefully that’s it for the Prince Andrew interview for a while: it’s in danger of turning into a cottage industry.
Sky Atlantic might have to swear an affidavit that actor Colin Farrell is beneath the cumbersome bodysuit and heavy prosthetics he wears for showrunner Lauren LeFranc’s new series The Penguin. Reprising his role from 2022 film The Batman, the engulfing goes beyond a costume; akin to building-cladding. It could be anybody in there.
That’s before you even get to the malformed foot, cause of the rocking penguin gait: a fleshy, rocky-mountain dessert of twisted bones and scattered toes. All credit to Farrell, though. As Oswald “Penguin” Cobb, he still manages to communicate emotion, threat, cunning and more: narrow eyes shining and pocked jowls rippling when an enemy cops it.
The first three episodes of eight are directed by Craig Zobel, director of Mare of Easttown. If Penguin resembles a DNA collision between Harvey Weinstein, Monty Python’s Mr Creosote and Tony Soprano, the series, a kind of Penguin prehistory, is DC Comics meets The Sopranos. Set in Gotham’s ultraviolent criminal underbelly, it’s in effect a psychological mafia thriller with a Godfather-level body count. Headed by Farrell as the scheming antihero, that cast includes Cristin Milioti as a mafia daughter sprung from a mental asylum and reputed to be a serial killer.
It’s plain daft in places (a jelly-like drug called Bliss grows on mushrooms in secret labs), and at times the graphic-novel flourishes undermine the rising tension. Still, having watched five episodes I’m eager for more. The Penguin introduces a brand new template into an exhausted genre, and Farrell and Milioti burn up the screen. This could be one of the strangest, sharpest, most original thrillers you’ll see all year.
On new six-part reality show M&S: Dress the Nation (ITV1), 10 amateurs compete for a job as a fashion designer at Marks & Spencer, watched over by presenters AJ Odudu and Vernon Kay, guest judge Mel “Scary Spice” Brown and some M&S executives.
I have a soft spot for TV fashion shows (Project Runway, Making the Cut et al), with their material bales, impassioned creatives with mouths full of pins, and unreasonable “four hours to make this” edicts. Dress the Nation doesn’t disappoint, and it isn’t long before mannequins are garbed with statement dresses. Sadly, with some of them, the statement is: “I made this in four hours and it looks like it.”
You may also wonder if anyone involved has even heard of M&S, including those who work for it. While the company is enjoying an upturn, that doesn’t make it Paris fashion week. Here, designers are earnestly hectored about being “too safe”, as if typical Marks customers crave the avant garde and aren’t just popping in for a cute jumper or a multipack of big knickers. Fun as it is, Dress the Nation could double as a documentary about the risks of misunderstanding your customer base.
For a supposed gripping thriller about peril on a fast-moving train, Nightsleeper (BBC One) is stubbornly underpowered. Created by Nick Leather, who wrote the poignant, Bafta-winning Murdered for Being Different), this six-part drama finds sinister hackers taking over, or “hack-jacking”, Britain’s train network and splattering messages (“MY NAME IS THE DRIVER”) across station announcement boards.
One overnight train from Glasgow to London hurtles along with a device on board and a sprinkle of trapped passengers. A somewhat listless Joe Cole (spoiler alert) as a disgraced Metropolitan police detective is the only hero they’ve got. Both Cole and Alexandra Roach, playing a cybersecurity expert, struggle with a plot that keeps packing up like bad wifi.
A few episodes in, I’m so disengaged I find myself absent-mindedly trying to spot a branch of Upper Crust during the station scenes. Nightsleeper wants to be the train version of Hijack, but it careers off the track.
Star ratings (out of five)
A Very Royal Scandal ★★★★
The Penguin ★★★★
M&S: Dress the Nation ★★★
Nightsleeper ★★
What else I’m watching
Frasier
(Paramount+)
Diverting second series of the Frasier reboot, with Kelsey Grammer leading the mainly new cast. Nicholas Lyndhurst (yes, Rodney Trotter) returns as Frasier’s professor friend. No match for the peerless original, but better than you’d think.
Agatha All Along
(Disney+)
A wicked new Marvel WandaVision spin-off. Featuring wild, campy witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), it also stars Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) and Joe Locke (Charlie from Heartstoppers).
La Maison
(Apple TV+)
Intense, stylish, French-language fashionista drama starring Lambert Wilson and Carole Bouquet. After a scandal, the head of a top couture label is forced to stand down, causing everyone to lunge for power.
