26/04/2022
Anatomy of a Scandal review: 'Unintentionally hilarious'
A new Netflix series continues the TV trend for tales of s*xual deceit among Britain's rich and powerful – but it's 'unintentionally hilarious', writes Laura Martin.
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Over the past few years, TV has become invested in stories about the s*xual exploits of the rich and powerful in British society – which also deploy the word "scandal" in the title. A Very English Scandal kicked off the trend in 2018, telling the true-life events of the politician Jeremy Thorpe (Hugh Grant), who plotted to have his ex-lover Norman Josiffe (Ben Whishaw) murdered so as not to thwart his plans to become prime minister. The same producers then followed this up with the glossy A Very British Scandal in 2021, which covered the acrimonious 1963 divorce court case of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll (played by Paul Bettany and Claire Foy), centring around photos of the Duchess engaged in oral s*x with an unidentified man.
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Hoping to follow in these shows' leads, we now have a brand-new tale of s*xual deceit – sorry, scandal – to ponder, with the release of Anatomy of a Scandal; no, not the third in a trilogy with the aforementioned dramas, but instead Netflix's six-parter based on the 2018 thriller of the same name by Sarah Vaughan and produced by Big Little Lies creator David E Kelley. (However it has been mooted as the first season in what is set to be a Netflix anthology series, which will focus on a different scandal each time.)
Unlike the "English" and "British" scandals before, this is a fictional tale, focused on a married MP, James Whitehouse (Rupert Friend), who has an affair with his aide in the hallways of power in Westminster. Author Vaughan says that the character of James was in part inspired by Boris Johnson, telling The Times: "What really struck me was that he didn't have any compunction about lying… It was very clear that he had a very different moral compass, that he was playing by different rules." However, UK viewers might at first be forgiven for confusing this story with that of the real-life British MP Matt Hancock: Hancock was found to be having an affair with his aide during the pandemic, with grainy CCTV footage of him fondling his mistress in his Westminster office released to nationwide mockery. But any such parallels quickly disappear as the plot takes a much darker turn, when the aide, Olivia Lytton (Naomi Scott), accuses James of ra**ng her in a lift in Parliament.
What follows is a clunky psychological thriller and courtroom drama, as James's bland but adoring wife, Sophie Whitehouse (Sienna Miller), deals with their "perfect" family life imploding, while the prosecuting QC, Kate Woodcroft (Michelle Dockery), is also struggling with the biggest court case of her career and the impact it has on her personal life.
Kelley – who has co-written this alongside Melissa James Gibson (House of Cards), with SJ Clarkson (Jessica Jones, Succession) directing – may have crossed the Atlantic, but, as with his US shows like Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers and The Undoing, his focus is still on the upper echelons of society. Unfortunately, the dialogue and action feel unnatural from the start; it's very English people doing things American people think very English people do – men wandering around in bowler hats and bow ties, drinking copious amounts of whisky in offices, and plummily wishing colleagues a "glorious" weekend.
