PARKY

 

It’s the end of an era now Michael Parkinson has retired; he was the last of his kind, a special breed.

The last of great chat show host and a master of his craft, who considered a great interview to be one where he had to say very little.

Now alas we have comedians sitting in the hosts chair trying to fill his shoes.

Skinner and Norton and others of their ilk who think they’re at a gig and the guests are merely an extension of their audience.

The worst of all is Jonathon Ross who thinks himself the star and his guests are the supporting cast with whom he can manipulate the conversation to the point where he can use a pre-planned gag.

When he does stop performing his act and using his guests as the stooges to bounce his gags off and finally asks a question, he invariably answers the question as well normally with another tedious gag.

By the time, the interview is over you know no more about the guest than you did before it started.

But it’s not just comedians of course who have tried and failed Clive James, Clive Anderson, pop stars, politicians, royals, socialites you name them they’ve all tried it and the end result is always the same. Hosts who are more interested in what they have to say than their guests in short people with big egos only interested in self-promotion.

The guests themselves don’t help the situation as they are only there because their production company, recording co, publishing co etc. want them to publicize their latest project or product.

So now all the great interviewers have gone, and we must mourn the lost art of interviewing because none of the younger exponents have bothered to learn the craft from Michael Parkinson’s example.