Quote: zooo @ July 8 2009, 10:53 PM BSTNah, I've never been near a volovant!
*vol-au-vant (Sorry. 
)
Quote: Balf @ July 8 2009, 10:55 PM BSTI will say this for hin, he did give early support for Billy Connolly. That's the best thing I can say about him.
Then everything else must be f**king terrible.
I'm afraid you're all wrong. Again. Maybe every interview wasn't gold dust but the interviews with Ali were fantastic. And he could get genuine greats on the show that weren't just there to promote themselves. In fact it was only towards the last few series of Parkinson that clips from films and the like were permitted.Ross may be a child of the noughties but he hasn't got any idea when to shut up and allow guests to tell their story without sticking his somewhat tawdry lines in when they're not needed. Parkinson, fawning or not, did.
Quote: Balf @ July 8 2009, 10:55 PM BSTI will say this for hin, he did give early support for Billy Connolly. That's the best thing I can say about him.
*spits*
Quote: Tim Walker @ July 8 2009, 10:57 PM BST*vol-au-vant (Sorry.
I Googled it as well!
I guess a lot of other people have spelled it wrong too. Shouldn't really use Google as a dictionary...
No, I'm afraid that's nonsense. (And at that time, a hat-stand could of delivered an interesting interview with Ali. The interviews were good despite Parkinson. He hadn't even researched enough to know that Ali was barely literate, so Ali took it as a bit of a dig when MP repeatedly asked him about whether or not he'd read something in a book. Prannet.)
I think you're right about the hat stand. Just let Ali do the talking. Which is what he did. JR. No way. He would have killed that interview because of that very reason. He can't be a hat stand.
Fair point.
One thing I don't see much of these days however is the quality of guests. This of course not JR's fault. Gene Kelly. Bing Crosby. Ali. Bob Hope. James Cagney. David Niven. Shirley MacLaine. John Wayne. James Stewart. All absolute greats. Where are their replacements?
Quote: Seefacts @ July 8 2009, 4:26 PM BSTThe thing with Parky was in his 70s heyday he was quite a tough interviewer - see his stuff with Ali - but by the end of his show, he was a sycophantic bore.
If anything I'd say he was tougher later on. His 70s BBC stuff was an exercise in sycophancy. Later on he was a bit less respectful of the guests but he was also less starstruck, though it's true there aren't "stars" with the same mystique now in the way there were when Parky started.
I said it at the time but just before Jonathan Ross got banned he had a great show in which Parky was a guest, and so was Faye Dunaway - a proper old-school star with a bit of mystique. Parky rightly pointed out how good Ross's interview with Dunaway was. Ross can be a great interviewer when he is interested and Parky could be too, but we might know too much about our "stars" now for them to be interested often enough.
I ain't really been a fan, I prefered Jonathan Ross and Frank Skinner to the more serious Parkinson. However since he's 'retired' he seems to be on telly more than when he wasn't retired on all these stupid adverts, promoting books and his life in music!
Unless it's someone you're personally interested in seeing/hearing from. Chat shows, along with award and clip shows* are f**king boring.
*Brooker, Hill and Brand excluded.