A Very Royal Scandal (Amazon Prime Video)
Penguin (Sky Atlantic/Now)
M&S: Dress the Nation (ITV1) | ITVX
Sleeping at night (BBC One) | iPlayer
Probably screenwriter Jeremy Brock A Very Royal ScandalAmazon Prime’s new three-part series News Night‘s 2019 interview with Prince Andrew was mired in legal red tape – not least the prince’s reported £12m payment to Virginia Giuffre, with no admission of liability. As with Netflix’s dramatisation of the same interview, Ladleearlier this year, tones and sympathies were shifting everywhere.
One moment Andrew (Michael Sheen) seems wrapped in a carefully unspoken regret; the next he is comically bumbling around like a majestic Winnie-the-Pooh. Likewise, News Night Interviewer Emily Maitlis, played by Ruth Wilson (Maitlis’ executive producer), vacillates between journalistic focus (sitting in pink curlers waiting for the tick) and horror when asked by a news channel, “How does it feel to overthrow a member of the monarchy?”
A Very Royal Scandal much better LadleLike Gillian Anderson Ladle‘s Maitlis has Wilson speaking in a distractingly deep voice, but unlike Anderson, she doesn’t turn into a full-on Beeb-approved Darth Vader. Wilson also brings light and shadow to a complicated woman in an ethically complicated situation. Here, Maitlis is depicted recalling her own perverse nightmare and realizing it’s not about her or Andrew: it’s about Giuffre (who claims the prince had sex with her when she was 17) and countless other victims of the late New York financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Similarly, Prince Andrew initially seems to have been played for comedy with smug boasts about his service in the Falklands War (“All [Charles] “What he did was talk to roses and screw his goddamned mistress”). But as the net tightens, Sheen pulls through, and panic finally punctures his lifelong sense of entitlement. Elsewhere, Alex Jennings is magnificent as the Queen’s pale private secretary, Sir Edward Young; as is Sofia Oxenham as the tormented Princess Beatrice.
After a few episodes of Nightsleeper I feel so disconnected that I find myself trying to spot a branch of the Upper Crust during the station scenes
Parts of the interview are being reenacted (Pizza Express in Woking and the rest) and this is where such dramas are labelled as self-indulgent and self-aggrandising. I was also surprised to see Epstein portrayed on screen (it’s too early for that) HE(Exactly?) In conclusion, this media/copyright conflict is a reminder that: Crown in his prime. I hope that’s it for the Prince Andrew interview for a while: it’s in danger of turning into a cottage industry.
Actor Colin Farrell may have to swear he is in the shape of a man under the bulky jumpsuit and heavy prosthetics he dons for producer Lauren LeFranc’s new series, Sky Atlantic has learned. PenguinHe’s reprising his role in the 2022 film BatmanWrapping goes beyond a costume; it is more like a building envelope. It can be any there.
That’s before you even get to the poorly formed feet, due to the wobbling penguin walk: a fleshy, rocky mountainside of bent bones and ragged toes. Still, all credit to Farrell. As Oswald “The Penguin” Cobb, he still manages to convey emotion, menace, cunning, and more: narrow eyes flash and hollow cheeks ripple when an enemy gets the better of him.
The first three of eight episodes are directed by series director Craig Zobel. The Mare of EasttownIf Penguin is like a DNA collision between Harvey Weinstein, Monty Python’s Mr. Creosote, and Tony Soprano, the series, a kind of Penguin prehistory, is DC Comics’ The SopranosSet in the ultra-violent criminal underworld of Gotham, this film is a psychological mafia thriller. Godfather-level body count. Starring Farrell as the scheming anti-hero, the cast includes Cristin Milioti as a mob daughter who breaks out of a mental institution and is rumored to be a serial killer.
It’s downright silly in places (a jelly-like drug called Bliss is grown on mushrooms in secret laboratories) and the occasional comic flourishes undermine the growing tension, but after watching five episodes I’m still eagerly awaiting more. Penguin brings a fresh template to an exhausted genre, and Farrell and Milioti burn up the screen. This might be one of the weirdest, sharpest, most original thrillers you’ll see all year.
In a new six-episode reality show M&S: Dress People (ITV1), 10 amateurs compete to win a job as fashion designers at Marks & Spencer under the watch of presenters AJ Odudu and Vernon Kay, guest judge Mel “Scary Spice” Brown and a number of M&S executives.
I have a weakness for fashion shows on TV (Project Track, Making the Cut and others), with their bales of material, passionate creators with their mouths full of needles, and their illogical “four hours to do it” edicts. Dress the Nation does not disappoint and it does not take long for the models to get into the fancy dresses. Unfortunately, some of them say things like: “I made this in four hours and it looks like this.”
You might also be wondering if anyone involved, including those who work in the business, has ever heard of M&S. While the company is on a roll, that doesn’t make it Paris fashion week. Here, designers are heartily berated for being “too safe,” as if the typical Marks customer craves the avant-garde and doesn’t just come for a cute jumper or a multipack of oversized knickers. As entertaining as it is, Dress the Nation It can also be used as a documentary about the risks of misunderstanding your audience.
For a gripping thriller about danger on a fast-moving train, Sleeping at night (BBC One) is stubbornly underpowered. Poignant, created by Bafta winner Nick Leather They Were Killed For Being Different), this six-part drama follows malicious hackers taking over, or “hack-jacking”, the UK’s train network and posting messages on station announcement boards (“MY NAME IS DRIVER”).
An overnight train from Glasgow to London is hurtling through the air with a device and trapped passengers. The slightly reluctant Joe Cole (spoiler alert) is the only hero they have as a disgraced Metropolitan Police detective. Both Cole and Alexandra Roach, who plays a cybersecurity expert, struggle with a constantly convoluted plot point, such as bad wifi.
After watching a few episodes I feel so disconnected that I find myself struggling to notice a branch of the Upper Crust during the station scenes. Sleeping at night wants to be the train version To missbut it goes off the rails.
Star ratings (out of five)
A Very Royal Scandal ★★★★
Penguin ★★★★
M&S: Dress the Nation ★★★
Sleeping at night ★★
What else do I watch?
Frasier
(Paramount+)
Changing the direction of the second series Frasier reboot, with Kelsey Grammer leading a mostly new cast. Nicholas Lyndhurst (yes, that Rodney Trotter) returns as Frasier’s professor friend. It doesn’t rival the peerless original, but it’s better than you might think.
Agatha All Together
(Disney+)
A bad new Marvel WandaVision spin-off. Featuring the wild, campy witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), the film also stars Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) and Joe Locke (from Charlie Heart stoppers).
House
(Apple TV+)
Intense, stylish, French-language fashion drama starring Lambert Wilson and Carole Bouquet. After a scandal, the head of a leading fashion brand is forced to resign, leaving everyone jostling for power.