Niall Gooch

Michael Parkinson and the lost art of the interview

Michael Parkinson, 1980 (photo: Getty)

Two or three years ago, the Tory MP Jonathan Gullis was ridiculed for describing himself as ‘someone who grew up on Dad’s Army and Porridge and loves those traditional programmes of the past’, even though he was born in 1990. The suggestion was that if you weren’t old enough to vote when Tony Blair left office, then it was rather strange to retain a fondness for sitcoms which completed their original runs in the late seventies. This is not right, however. I know from personal experience that if you were raised in a household with traditional media tastes then even an eighties and nineties childhood – before the fragmentation of audiences driven by digital TV and the internet – could leave you with an enduring affection for the classic shows and personalities of a previous era. Morecambe and Wise, Frank Spencer, Fawlty Towers, The Good Life, and so on.  

Above all, Parkinson had a genuine interest in people and their lives – a kind of practical humanism

One such personality, of course, was Sir Michael Parkinson, who has died aged 88.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in