Prince Andrew emerges for the first time as Scoop hits the screen: Duke breaks cover on a horse ride in Windsor – as ‘hugely embarrassing’ Netflix film piles pressure on the Palace

A grinning Prince Andrew was pictured out riding this morning as a ‘hugely embarrassing’ new film about his disastrous interview with Emily Maitlis went live on Netflix.  

The Duke of York, 64, is once again in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons as Scoop painstakingly retells the whole sorry saga – piling yet more pressure on the Palace to freeze him out of royal life completely. 

The Holiday actor Rufus Sewell stars as the late Queen’s son while Gillian Anderson portrays Ms Maitlis, who quizzed Andrew about his friendship with billionaire convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

Royal author Richard Fitzwilliams said the film would further stymie any attempts by the Duke to rehabilitate himself in the public eye by ‘confirming’ viewers’ already negative view of him. 

Meanwhile, biographer and investigative journalist Tom Bower believes Scoop should remind the King that he must stop any attempt by his brother to get back to public life. 

Despite facing yet more public humiliation, Andrew appeared in good spirits this morning – smiling broadly as he went for a ride in the grounds of Windsor Castle with a female companion. 

Mr Fitzwilliams said the Netflix show painted a devastating portrait of Andrew’s character. 

‘The film conveys the extraordinary sense of entitlement that Andrew had. He is told by his aide Amanda Thirsk to ”just be himself” and he is – that’s the most damning thing,’ he said. 

‘It is very embarrassing for the Palace and simply another indication that Andrew is completely unfit for the Royal Family he was born into.

‘The public’s view of him is already ghastly and couldn’t be worse so this will confirm people’s opinions. The film also adds a new dimension by portraying his childlike side – such as the scene featuring his teddy bears.

‘The person we see in the film doesn’t seem to have any idea of reality. It shows how people in a privileged position can become completely out of touch.’

Mr Bower said: ‘To save the Royal Family from more horrendous damage, King Charles will finally need to order Prince Andrew to permanently stay out of public view. Senior officials also need to tell Andrew the truth.

‘He is a serious liability and cannot be trusted or rescued. Unless King Charles firmly grasps this nettle it can only get worse’.

The Daily Mail’s TV and film critic Brian Viner praised  Scoop for its ‘top-quality cast and mischievous script’. 

He wrote: ‘Like Netflix’s The Crown, director Philip Martin’s film deftly mixes historical truths with dramatic licence. But fiction can’t compete with fact.

‘Scoop is never more electrifying than when it finally arrives at the only part of the story we already know intimately, the interview itself, with all its extraordinary minutiae about Pizza Express in Woking and Andrew’s supposed inability to sweat.

‘It is very carefully and convincingly recreated.’

The Daily Telegraph film critic Tim Robey also awarded it five stars out of five, hailing the layers of drama which he feels sets it apart from previous royal dramas like The Queen and The Crown.

Robey said: ‘It’s no laughing matter, obviously, but aspects of the whole saga are still inescapably absurd, and maximally milked in a borderline-The-Thick-of-It fashion without going overboard.

‘The director, Philip Martin, plays everything right to the cusp – where you clamp hand to mouth, aghast at remembering that this train wreck actually happened, and irresistibly compelled to relive it.’

But the film, also starring Billie Piper and Keeley Hawes, received mixed reviews, with The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw described the performances as laborious.

Bradshaw offered the film two stars out of five, describing it as ‘laboriously acted and distinctly self-admiring, self-mythologising drama about the media, the royals and the media royals’.

The critic said there was one ‘spark’ in the moment Andrew is shown humiliating a female staff member for mishandling his collection of soft toys.

‘It’s a flash of black-comic horror and Sewell has something to get his teeth into as an actor,’ he said.

‘Otherwise, the drama is smothered by its own overwhelming sense of importance.’ 

Barber said the film lacked ‘a bit of boldness, irreverence, imagination and depth’.

‘It’s a brisk, well-acted and solidly built newsroom drama, but there is plenty of scope for the Amazon series (A Very Royal Scandal) to be better’, he said.

Among those hailing Piper’s performance as Sam McAlister, the Newsnight producer who sealed the interview, was The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey who said the actress offered an ‘excellent performance’.

Elsewhere, The Hollywood Reporter film critic Leslie Felperin said: ‘Scoop feels more like another example of Netflix feasting on the British royal family’s dirty laundry now that The Crown has gone as far into the present as it can go (or dares to go).’

Following the Newsnight broadcast in November 2019 and the furore over Andrew’s friendship with Epstein, the duke stepped down from public life.

The interview was dubbed a ‘car crash’, with commentators questioning his responses and condemning his unsympathetic tone and lack of remorse over his friendship with the sex offender Epstein.

In scenes that humiliated Andrew and his family, he claimed he was at Pizza Express in Woking on the night Virginia Giuffre claimed he had sex with her in London when she was 17.

He also tried to dispel her claims he ‘sweats profusely’ by claiming that being shot at during the Falklands War left him with a condition that means he is unable to perspire.

Andrew then went on to suggest the photo of them together at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London mews house was faked.

Despite all of this, the man who shot the interview – Mark Harrison – claims Andrew thought the interview went ‘really well’ at the time. 

Andrew was stripped of his military titles in 2022 and banned from using HRH in an official capacity by his late mother the Queen. 

Recently he has begun appearing more prominently at royal events, with the Prince beaming as he stood in front and centre alongside Princess Anne and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson while attending the Easter Sunday Service at Windsor.

A body language expert previously described how Prince Andrew ‘positioned himself as leader of the Royal Family’ at King Constantine’s memorial event.

The Duke, who stepped down from royal duties in 2019, attended the St George’s Chapel service with ex-wife and other family members- and was seen with a wide smile on his face as he led the way.

Speaking to FEMAIL, Judi James Andrew put on a ‘bizarre’ display which suggested he wanted to ‘position himself in the role of leader’ of the British royal group.

She said: ‘Grinning like the Cheshire Cat at a memorial service where everyone else is looking suitably solemn looks like an overkill performance ritual from Andrew who appears to apply the widest smile just as he walks within range of the cameras.’

‘Andrew was seen in a similar state of cheeriness on his last outing with the royal group and this kind of random-looking grinning suggests a desire to appear carefree and resilient.’

That previous occasion was at Christmas, when he appeared similarly cheery as he attended church at Sandringham with his family.

Andrew, who has previously strenuously denied allegations against, paid millions a year ago to settle a civil case out of court with Virginia Giuffre.

There was no admission of guilt after she accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.

Ms Giuffre, formerly Roberts, had claimed in a 2015 lawsuit she was made by Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew on three separate occasions when she was 17.

Later, in 2021, she filed a lawsuit against the prince over the alleged encounters.

The prince has strenuously denied all wrong doing and continues to do so.

But Andrew was mentioned more than 70 times in almost 1,000 pages of interviews and transcripts released in the US in January.

The documents are part of a 2015 defamation case brought by Ms Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, who was jailed for sex trafficking young girls for Epstein. 

Emily Maitlis has already served as an executive producer of a Channel 4 documentary about the interview.

Another drama about the interview, an Amazon series called A Very Royal Scandal starring Michael Sheen as Andrew and Ruth Wilson as Maitlis, is also in the works.