Class, criminality, sex and hypocrisy provide the dramatic thrills in a trilogy of true stories that expose powerful Brits. A Very English Scandal, A Very British Scandal and A Very Royal Scandal are all streaming on Prime Video.
Content warning: contains reference to suicide
Sex sells, so they say, and if it comes with a dash of scandal on the side, all the better. Particularly if the folks embroiled in said imbroglio are powerful figures of authority primed for a very public fall from grace. If they’re terribly posh, too, then it’s pure catnip for the clawing masses who love to hiss, spit and claw upwards.
A queer turn of events – A Very English Scandal
Watch on Prime VideoAll of which made Dangerous Liaisons director Stephen Frears’ three-part, 2018 miniseries A Very English Scandal so wickedly delicious. The man who recreated late British monarch Elizabeth II’s darkest hour in The Queen was the perfect fit to direct this juicy look at a politician’s undoing.
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Adapted from John Preston’s non-fiction book of the same name by Queer as Folk creator Russell T Davies, A Very English Scandal stars the ever-magnificent Hugh Grant as North Devon MP Jeremy Thorpe.
On the surface of things, he seems to have his shit very much together. Cutting a handsome dash (even more so when played by Grant), Thorpe studied at Eton and Oxford, then dabbled as a lawyer and a journalist. Turning instead to politics, he rose through the ranks stratospherically, becoming the youngest-ever leader of the admittedly waning Liberal Party. Married to Caroline Allpass (Alice Orr-Ewing), they had a son, Rupert, completing the perfect public-facing picture.
But Thorpe was leading a double life. He had a former relationship with a troubled young man named Norman Scott, played by Bond star Ben Whishaw. It’s the ’60s, with homosexuality very much criminalised, and the spooks—aka MI5—were on to him. Indeed, this secret was the reason why Thorpe wasn’t cleared to be Antony Armstrong-Jones’ best man when he married Princess Margaret.
Having been cast off by Thorpe, Scott, struggling, elected to blackmail the politician, thereby igniting a terrible sequence of tragic events, leading to attempted murder most foul. Incredible television, in other words.
What makes A Very English Scandal so very, very good is that, despite the worst behaviour of Thorpe and Scott, beautifully portrayed by Grant and Whishaw, we still sympathise with their predicament in a society that would rather men tear each other apart than risk love that dare not speak its name.
Happily ever after? – A Very British Scandal
Watch on Prime VideoThe anthology show exposing very bad behaviour returned for another three-episode run in 2021. Once again centred on the ’60s, this time A Very British Scandal looks at the outrage sparked by a woman who dares to be sexually adventurous.
Stewarded by BAFTA-winning writer Sarah Phelps and directed by Anne Sewitsky, the saucy miniseries features The Crown’s sometime queen, Claire Foy, as socialite Margaret Whigham Sweeny. Something of a player with an ex-husband to her name, she nevertheless marries into Scottish nobility, settling for Ian Douglas Campbell, the 11th Duke of Argyll, as played by WandaVision lead Paul Bettany.
Despite these great actors sharing fantastic onscreen chemistry, it’s fair to say that the nuptials of the real-life scandalising couple they depict do not lead to a happily ever after, particularly when his last will and testament won’t go her way. There’s also the small matter of a particularly incendiary photograph featuring a pearl necklace, erupting into exceedingly messy divorce proceedings in Edinburgh that slung the muck left, right and centre.
As with A Very English Scandal, Phelps’ show is working on more than one level. Yes, the salacious details of the Campbells’ exceedingly messy breakdown exert the same perverse magnetic pull as roadkill.
But there’s a powerful message in here, too, about society’s double standards when it comes to gender. Campbell’s slut-shaming of Margaret, very much jeered on by the press and public, is particularly rich, given that he cheated on his wife to run off with her, making her his third wife.
In fairness, Margaret isn’t exactly blameless, plotting wild schemes to secure her future at all costs. Also look out for Nighty Night creator Julia Davis as her backstabbing bestie, in what is a gloriously hot mess that makes for an eminently watchable meltdown.
It’s a knockout – A Very Royal Scandal
Watch on Prime VideoA Very Royal Scandal (2024), the third and, so far, final chapter of this blooming brilliant series showcasing wacky British toffs doing hectic stuff to one another in guaranteed headline-grabbing ways, managed to generate plenty of column inches itself.
That’s because the three-part miniseries, striking at the heart of the British aristocracy, a family so scandal-prone they could spin off a zillion more of these shows, was one of two that went head-to-head in tracing the disgrace of Prince Andrew.
This one, written by BAFTA-winning scribe behind The Last King of Scotland and directed by Julian Jarrold, casts Michael Sheen, who played Prime Minister Tony Blair in The Queen, as Elizabeth II’s youngest son.
He was accused by the remarkably strong Virginia Giuffre, who campaigned publicly for justice, alleging that she was trafficked to him as a teenager by notorious convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. A situation made all the more traumatic given Giuffre has since taken her own life, after having secured a settlement from the monarchy.
A Very Royal Scandal dramatises the prince’s immaculate own goal when, having agreed to what he hoped was a name-clearing interview with then-Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis (Luther star Ruth Wilson), he demonstrated a heartless disdain for Giuffre and feebly offered his now infamously ludicrous “I don’t sweat” defence against her accusations.
A car crash beamed to millions around the world, it’s brought to life here with great care by the crew, Wilson and Sheen. Dynamite, it’s hardly surprising that the story also inspired the Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper and Rufus Sewell-led film Scoop, which got the scoop by being released first.
Turns out there’s just so much scandal on these Isles that sometimes a gripping story must be told twice over.
