Kirsty Wark says she preferred A Very British Scandal to Scoop, as while one was a “rollicking drama” the other failed to give “enough people their place”.
Employed by the BBC for nearly 50 years, Wark presented Newsnight from 1993 to 2024, stepping down this summer after more than three decades at the helm.
Speaking at the fourth live show of Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction tour in Glasgow, the BAFTA-winning journalist also dished the dirt on one former BBC colleague she said was not the best “team player”.
Kicking off with one of the BBC’s most notorious interviews, Wark said Emily Maitlis got chosen to interview Prince Andrew as she was chief presenter of Newsnight at the time.
The interview – which aired in November 2019 – was swiftly branded “disastrous” and “excruciating” for the royal, as he was questioned about his relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
When asked by Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby which of the two recent TV productions based on the interview – Scoop and A Very Royal Scandal – she preferred, Wark plumped for A Very British Scandal.
Released earlier this month, Maitlis was an executive producer on the Prime Video miniseries.
Wark said: “They’re both dramas, and neither is an absolute, you know it’s not about the truth.
“One gives more weight to some people and the other one gives more weight to other people, but by and large, the idea of it being a team endeavour is much more embedded in the second, the Royal Scandal, than it is in the first.
“The first was a rollicking drama, but I don’t actually think that enough people were given their place.”
Scoop, which streamed on Netflix, focused on the story from the angle of Newsnight guest booker Sam McAlister who persuaded Prince Andrew to appear on the show.
Wark said that at the time Prince Andrew had “thought he’d done a really good interview”, and after the chat had offered to show Maitlis around Buckingham Place.
‘I was the one who suggested his train travels!’
Speaking about some of her own interviews over the years, Wark told Rigby, along with co-hosts Labour peer Harriet Harman and Conservative peer Ruth Davidson, about two high-profile interviewees she had rubbed up the wrong way.
She sat down with former prime minister Margaret Thatcher at the height of the poll tax riots.
Wark said she was “preternaturally calm” and had prepared meticulously going on: “Nobody knew except my husband that I was pregnant. And I thought, well, I’m not going to let [Mrs Thatcher] upset me. I’ll be very calm and controlled.”
After the interview – which Wark said nearly got cancelled at the last minute – Thatcher told Wark she had “interrupted me more than I’ve ever been interrupted”, to which Wark said she thought “game on”.
Remembering another interviewee who did not appreciate her journalistic tenacity, Wark said a sit-down with the former Conservative MP Michael Portillo did not end well.
Wark said the ex-chief secretary to the Treasury had “riled her” by saying “stop hectoring me”.
She admitted she had interviewed him after she “returned to work too soon” following the death of her father and godmother.
Wark joked: “The only broadcasting complaint I ever had upheld was with Michael Portillo. And actually, it’s outrageous because I was the one who suggested them for the train travels!”
The former Conservative MP has presented 15 series of Great British Railway Journeys for BBC Two over the last 15 years.
A former BBC colleague who wasn’t ‘a team player’
She also revealed that when her former BBC colleague Robert Peston had come along to do a few shifts on Newsnight, he had refused to follow the show’s precedent of brainstorming ideas together, and wearing an earpiece so others could pitch in on an interview.
After letting Peston shadow her the day before, she came into work to discover he was going solo for his own interview, adding with heavy irony that he was “a real team player”. Peston is now political editor at ITV News.
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In other TV news, Wark admitted she had been “asked so many times” to do Strictly Come Dancing but had so far refused due to work commitments and illness.
She did not reveal if she would consider it in the future.
A keen cook, Wark has appeared on celebrity versions of MasterChef and The Great British Bake Off.
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