interview

Michael Parkinson was a maestro of the golden age of British television

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Parkinson, who has died aged 88, will be remembered for his blend of entertainment and serious thinking, a rare combination today

By Donald Clarke | The Irish Times

It is easy to get sentimental about the often-touted golden age of British television in the 1970s. But there really was a period when one of the BBC’s biggest shows allowed guests 20 minutes (or more) to chew over everything that mattered to them.

Michael Parkinson
Michael Parkinson

Michael Parkinson, who has died at the age of 88, was a maestro in the art of interviewing. During the first run of his eponymous show – lasting from 1971 until 1982 – he carried out justifiably legendary interviews with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Orson Welles, David Niven, Peter Ustinov and Lauren Bacall. It would not be entirely correct to say he displayed no ego. A proud – and unmistakable – Yorkshireman with strong opinions, he would occasionally prod his subjects in provocative fashion, but they were always allowed space to roam about the conversational hinterland. Often the stars had books or films to flog. Sometimes, they just happened to be in town. We were, however, in a very different place to the offshoots of the PR business that often now pass for talkshows. It really does seem like a golden age.

Parkinson always saw himself as a journalist first. Born near Barnsley in the UK, he attended grammar school, excelled as a club cricketer and, after cutting his teeth on school papers, landed a job on features at the Manchester Guardian (yet to lose the “Manchester” from its masthead). Just old enough to undergo national service, he saw action during the Suez crisis. On return, he moved into television, working in current affairs for Granada and on the BBC’s magazine series 24 Hours. The Parkinson show began in a late-night slot on Saturday and fast became an unmissable institution.

Parkinson’s grounding in print journalism held him in good stead. He always did his research. He actually listened to what his guest was saying. The interviews were usually good natured, but tensions – famously with Ali – occasionally added spice to the entertainment. Parkinson called the boxer, whom he interviewed on four occasions, “the most remarkable man I ever met”, but the chats did not always glisten with bonhomie. “You do not have enough,” Ali once cut back. “You are too small mentally to tackle me on nothing that I represent.” Parkinson was unshaken. “Must have been a good question I asked you because you’ve been talking for about 15 minutes,” he responded. Continue reading →

Richard Thompson on the flowering of Fairport Convention

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Richard Thompson book

“There was a musical explosion – you could play almost anything and be accepted”

The current issue of Uncut – in shops now or available to buy online by clicking here, with free P&P for the UK – features an exclusive extract from Richard Thompson’s forthcoming memoir Beeswing in which he recalls how, in 1967, the newly formed Fairport Convention took their first tentative steps into London’s burgeoning underground scene. In addition, Thompson talks candidly to Uncut about the process of writing the book and how he feels now looking back at those naive and exciting early days…

RICHARD THOMPSON: “The ’60 and ’70s continue to be musically of great interest to people. Although we thought it was very ordinary at the time, it does turn out to have been an exceptional period – a great musical crossroads. I thought I’d just chuck down some reminiscences before I popped my clogs, as they say. Not that I intend to any time soon!

“You think that you remember everything, but when you actually sit down and start to write, stuff comes out that you’d forgotten. I think it helped me, actually. There was a kind of catharsis in writing about that time, which was part joyous – as it is when you’re a teenager – and part painful. You forget about the painful stuff, but that mix is in there, and it was quite extraordinary to go back and really think about it.

“I suppose I was fortunate in the people I gravitated towards. Meeting Simon [Nicol] and Ashley [Hutchings], who became the core of Fairport, was a wonderful thing, and a crucial thing. Very early on, about 1967, I could tell we had some kind of musical future, even if it only lasted a year. That was good enough for me, and I could put off thinking about getting a real job until I was at least 22. Then when Sandy [Denny] joined, that made us a really good band – we felt this was actually something quite transcendental. All we wanted to do was play music to an audience, and it just happened to be that time when the floodgates were opened and so many bands could pass through. We felt that circumstances dragged us along. There was a musical explosion in London – so many different styles were emerging that you could play almost anything and be accepted. You could play folk-rock and be accepted by an audience that also listened to The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and Pink Floyd. It was all just part of the hippie culture, this underground musical revolution.

“The scene was a real community – people would help each other out, lend each other gear, tow each other back down the M1. Now people say, ‘My God, you played with Hendrix?’ But at the time it didn’t seem that exceptional because he would jam with a lot of people. Musicians weren’t really celebrities back in those days; that came later.

“I had to be cajoled into starting the book, but once I started I really enjoyed the writing process. You can write a song in 10 minutes – I’m not saying it’s always that quick, but it’s a much swifter and less detailed process. You can be a lot more abstract and poetic in songwriting, you don’t have to fill in the gaps. Writing prose, you have to be more linear. It takes structure, more discipline. I tried to write for at least a few hours a day. And as much as I enjoyed the writing process, I hated the editorial process – handing it over to other people. Having not been edited ever as a songwriter, that came as a bit of a shock. Suddenly you have to justify yourself to other people!

“There are a couple of songs I’ve written since finishing the book that seem to be reflective of that time period. I often refer back to earlier times because songwriting is almost a decoding of your own life. So I’ve done a couple of things that have been, I suppose, brought up by the process. I don’t know about laid to rest, that sounds a bit too final – or pretentious! But it’s helped me to put some events from the ’60s and ’70s into perspective.”

You can read the full extract from Richard Thompson’s Beeswing in the May 2021 issue of Uncut, out now with The Velvet Underground on the cover!

Source: Richard Thompson on the flowering of Fairport Convention | UNCUT