What ever happened to the good old fashioned chat show?
I remember watching Parkinson; the immense theme music and the legendary interviews (yes, even the Megan Ryan one…) were standard saturday night telly once upon a time.
Parkinson had a rare quality. He managed the get his guests to reveal their true characters, including the audience, so that it felt like you were having a chat with David Beckham over a couple of pints at the pub.
These days, chat shows feel like they have to be a chat show plus something else. People like Paul O’Grady and Graham Norton have great guests on, and ask some really good questions – but then there are the random side shows that get added to the programs, linked with some obscure reason: “Hey its National Sirloin Steak day, so James May is going to ride the mechanical bull!”
Piers Morgan actually has come up with a decent interview show – Life Stories is quite a good watch, and he often gets good guests (I actually enjoyed the Cliff Richard one the most!) – however, he only ever gets one guest at a time!!
The thing is, for the most part, the calibre of the guest means that they will want to be focussed on for the entire show – something that they wouldn’t get from a Norton show, for example.
That was the glory of Parkinson – for example, he got Hugh Lawrie and George Michael on the same show; these are two global stars, sharing the same spotlight.
And I think that is the beauty of Parkinson – at times he didn’t need to do anything, the guests interviewed each other!
I’d love for ‘them’ (who ever ‘they’ are) to bring back Parky for one more episode, maybe at Christmas. He’d blow the ratings out of the water, then the tv executives would see that there is a market for a straight down the line, quality, chat show.