Scoop: a piece of news published by a newspaper or broadcast by a television or radio station in advance of its rivals.

And that’s the story of “Scoop” in director Philip Martin’s compelling, high speed, no brakes story of a group of newspaper people, from the top floor of the Royal Palace to the glassed in cubicles of “BBC Newsnight.”

Martin starts big the way we Americans like it, with an early morning phone call to American tabloid paparazzo Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells), sending him motorbiking through Manhattan traffic to hide and take pictures of two men emerging from an expensive home on the upper East Side.

The two men are, of course, the now disgraced and deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the tattered Prince Andrew of Royal birth.
The camera follows them through Central Park as Epstein and the Prince walk and talk. The pictures Jae takes flash instantly to the BBC screens in London, and we’re off.

Soon we get the story of a working girl’s (Billie Piper, “Doctor Who”) ambition to climb out of her cubicle to the top of her dream of being a recognized newswoman on the BBC.

It’s safe to say that the toothsome Piper as Sam McAlister, a single mother with a warm and comforting mother of her own, is the working class star of this ink and paper ballad of the biggest scandal to rock the British since John Profumo kissed Christine in 1961. And you’ll be glad they cast her.

From the start of the chase, the in-place, behind-the-glass top dogs, including featured star Emily Maitlis (“The X-Files” Gillian Anderson looking a beguiling 30 years old?) are full of the old school BBC values and proper attire.

As the reviewer for our papers here in the “Middle” world of Maine, I will skip the constant British tradition of spending the first hour of “dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s” and deprive you of the quail and foie gras for what we call “soup to nuts.”

And here’s the soup and various nuts. It all boils down to Maitlis persuading our Prince — Duke of York to sit down on camera and explain how he came to be a star of what he keeps calling “one big mistake” (denying of course, saying that it’s nonsense and nothing like a scandal).

McAlister, the former “Newsnight” booker, by hook and crook, got the Prince’s agreement to participate in the famous interview hoping for it to slip into a confession. She gambled and won.

The highlight here is the quiet, dimmed interview set in a stately living room set with two chairs. In closeups, Maitlis’s hands write and Prince Andrew squirms and shuffles and tries to change the subject by talking about a disease that keeps him from sweating. We’re watching a police procedure in action.

You will want to watch this scene carefully. Its star Rufus Sewell (currently starring in the Netflix series “The Diplomat”) given a doughy make over, stammering through obvious lies that include the “Pizza Express Chinese cafe in Woking.” You won’t recognize him.

Watching all of this from the background is another important player with secrets in her heart. She’s a quiet, lovely woman, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), the Prince’s private secretary. She’s a more than important player.

All of this, and what has followed, has been softened by the recent Royal family’s health problems.

All of this maybe pushing us into a Nostradamus-apocalyptic Marvel comic action film, squeezed between an historic eclipse of the sun, treacherous national tornados and storms.

There’s Trump’s endless trials, aerial shots of the Statue of Liberty actually shaking, and the end of Democracy looming in November.

Meanwhile we see a new, white-haired Rufus Sewell, a new gorgeous Gillian Anderson, and a toothsome Billie Piper’s comeback.

“Scoop’s” director was Philip Martin. The screenplay was written by Peter Moffatt and Geoff Bussetil, based on the book “Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews” by Samantha McAlister.

With Billie Piper, Gillian Anderson, Keeley Hawes, Rufus Sewell, Romola Garai, Connor Swindells, and Lia Williams.

“Scoop” streams on Netflix. How easy is that?

 

J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.

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