Brace yourself for an Andy Tsunami. Two dramatisations of Prince Andrew’s calamitous 2019 interview with Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis are in the works. Netflix’s Scoop will star Rufus Sewell as the romping royal and Gillian Anderson as his interrogator. Meanwhile, Prime Video’s A Very Royal Scandal has Michael Sheen and Ruth Wilson as the leads. Whether anyone plays Andrew’s non-functioning sweat glands is yet to be revealed.
By anyone’s standards, that’s a whole lotta Andy. First, as an appetite whetter, there is the horribly riveting Prince Andrew: Banished (Virgin Media One, Tuesday, 9pm). This engrossing feature-length documentary by Jamie Crawford (director of Netflix’s Woodstock 99 series) was first broadcast on the US Peacock Network in 2022 but, 12 months later, remains gobsmacking viewing.
Andrew emerges as a spoiled child permitted to remain in a state of aggressive infantilisation throughout his life. “Andrew was the runt of the litter,” says former royal press officer Dickie Arbiter, his voice dripping disdain.
The pampered princeling seems to have been long destined for self-destruction. Andrew was charming, good-looking, and catastrophically narcissistic – and doted on by Queen Elizabeth. Nobody in his life was prepared to utter the word “no” within earshot. It didn’t help that his temperament was the opposite of that of his earnest older brother.
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“Charles was clumsy, didn’t fit in. Andrew fit in perfectly,” says one contributor. “He was one of the lads, very mischievous. Prince Philip loved this. [Andrew] was everything Charles hadn’t been.”
A spoiled child grew into a spoiled young man. There were glamorous girlfriends, flashy nightclubs – and teddy bears. One of his security guards describes the adult Andrew’s bed heaving with soft toys – which maids had to handle as though they were the crown jewels. “There was a picture of the teddy bears in situ,” the security man recalls. “If they’re not put back in that order, he will shout at the maids.”
The prince’s friendship with the disgraced Jeffrey Epstein caused alarm bells to clang at Buckingham Palace. A job was arranged for Andrew as trade envoy. But he proved useless. “He refused to stay at the ambassador’s residence – only at the royal suite at the best hotels,” remembers a former deputy ambassador to Bahrain, who had to deal with Andrew when he whizzed in for trade talks. “He arrived at the Ritz Carlton with an ironing board. His valet said, ‘No one else can iron his royal highnesses trousers like I can’.”
Then came Epstein’s arrest and suicide as he awaited his trial on sex trafficking charges, and the conviction of his enabler, Ghislaine Maxwell. As these downfalls unfolded, Andrew thought he could get off the hook by going on Newsnight. But instead of clearing his name, he invited ridicule with his claim that he could not have been seen sweating because he temporarily lost the ability to sweat after suffering excess of adrenaline serving in the Falklands.
It’s excruciating viewing and also a reminder of how lucky we are in this country to be spared a carnival as grotesque and outmoded as British royalty. It’s also a handy primer for all the Andy content soon to reach our screens.
