And on That Bombshell

I am back ‘blogging, fortunately I wasn’t taken by members of the Russian underground – or used as a bargaining tool to facilitate an international spy swap.

This ‘blog focuses on television chat shows, a genre which has always interested me. It appears to be a popular format, to the extent that almost every television programme now appears to drop a few chat show elements into it – for some reason, listening to two people talk on television is far more interesting than if they were talking in place other than in front of a television camera.

I watched Top Gear on BBC2 the other week and Alastair Campbell was the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, hence he had a mini interview with Jeremy Clarkson as well,

“he’s quite obnoxious, rude and small minded, yet despite all this, he appears to large following, with many people ignoring his misgivings and worshipping the ground he walks on”

… is what they both said after the interview. Campbell in fairness didn’t really have much to plug whilst he was on Top Gear, instead he spoke about the recent General Election and he put his usual spin on it. Clarkson conducted the interview quite well and he didn’t explode like Adam Boulton – the now infamous Boulton/Campbell clash is quite unique as Boulton became the first person in history to actually make Alastair Campbell come out of an interview looking relatively pleasant.

It is noticeable that Clarkson ends every episode of Top Gear with the Alan Partridge phrase “and on that bombshell” – this is perhaps a good analogy for what television chat shows have become, what started out as a joke on the fictional Alan Partridge show actually came to life when Cabinet minister Mo Mowlem MP took part in a dog marriage ceremony on So Graham Norton in 2000. Also such bottom-of-the-barrel behaviour was replicated when Jonathan Ross asked David Cameron MP if he had ever “had a wank while thinking about Mrs Thatcher”, which is quite a disgusting thing to ask – although no doubt the messages left by Ross on Cameron’s answerphone after the show were even more distasteful.

A few days before Campbell’s appearance on Top Gear I was flicking through the TV channels and happened upon a show on More4 which reviewed books to read for the summer. The guest on this occasion was Peter Andre, he spoke to heavyweight interviewer Jo Brand about his book “My World: in Pictures and Words” – one can only assume that to simply publish a book called “My World: in Words” would be too intellectually challenging for both Andre and his customer base, so he instead when for a Mr Men style book. I’m not fully sure which Mr Men character Andre would be – although it is worth noting that the most recent Mr Men book to be published was called Mr Nobody.

Whilst promoting his book, Andre did chat about his career, which didn’t take long, and he then spoke about his life and said that whilst he’d done “sex” and “rock and roll”, he didn’t do “drugs” – I’m not sure exactly what constituted the rock and roll to be honest, it could have been Mysterious Girl, but likewise it could have been that well know rock and roll song Insania. In all honesty, Andre sounds like a nice enough type of man. But that’s it. You could find people just as amiable as him on the street, yet we have a thirst for knowing more about him.

Indeed if we do want to find out about people on the street then we can get a warped idea by watching the Jeremy Kyle Show, where Kyle nips down to the local job centre in order to recruit his guests. Kyle, the morally superior host (twice married, fathered four children, had a string of affairs, former gambling addict and stole from his first wife, allegedly) then bear bates his guests, the bulk of whom have their lives in turmoil. Such a show isn’t new, the bigoted and permanently tanned Robert Kilroy-Silk presented a similar show for many years until he was forced to resign, he then attempted to re-start his Political career. Note, one funny moment involving Kilroy-Silk was when someone threw a bucket of horse manure over him – a case of the shit hitting the tan.

The nature of a celebrity chat show is quite tried and tested: start the series amongst much hype with some relatively big hitting guests; subsequently the quality of the guests will dwindle; normally each show will contain a comedian, in order to get a few laughs, and there will also be a musical guest for ensure everyone’s taste is catered for. It is worth pointing out that BBC4 has a range of in depth interviews that last one hour and focuses on the thoughts and career of the sole interviewee. These programmes are often on late at night though – heaven forbid that they might schedule clash with Robson Green’s Extreme Fishing.

Perhaps the worst of all the chat shows was Davina McCall’s self-titled show Davina – she will no doubt now regret the naming of the show as it inherently links back to her. However the slightly perverse thing is that not many people remember her for it because it was so terrible and the guests were so poor that virtually no-one watched this prime-time BBC1 show. Indeed it took over a week to realise that one show featured as its guests: Osama Bin Laden, Lord Lucan, Shergar and music from Glenn Miller… and on that bombshell…