Frost on Interviews

It's simply a camera on you, a camera on me, and a conversation.

-Do you...?

-Now, Robin, leave it. Now, leave it.

-I hadn't started yet.

If you haven't started, then I beg of you not to start.

You can be the greatest interviewer in the world,

but if the person opposite you

doesn't want to speak to you, you've had it!

I'm sorry, I'm fed up with this interview, really.

You can't hammer them on the head and say, "You will speak to me!"

It doesn't work that way.

For the public to get something out of it,

the interviewee does need to be challenged.

I'm sorry, I'm going to be frightfully rude, but...I'm sorry.

It's a straight yes or no...

You can put the question, and I will give you an answer.

And in fact, often needs to be challenged a lot.

-I must beg of you...

-We're not having a party political broadcast,

we're having an interview,

which must depend on me asking some questions occasionally.

I've been interviewed in that way,

and you feel you're on trial for your life.

I think you're a great flirt.

It's like when you're talking to somebody you like, and it's clicked.

You had, "I liked talking to him, that one's clicked."

You think, "Yes."

Hello, good evening and welcome to Frost On Interviews.

Over the last half century, the television interview has given us

some of TV's most heart-stopping and memorable moments.

And in my life, I've been lucky enough

to interview some of the key personalities

and politicians who have shaped our lives, and theirs, of course.

If you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned,

wait till I whip Foreman's behind!

You have total moral responsibility for all these people!

Do you think, Mr Frost,

that I spend my days prowling round the pigeonholes

of the Ministry of Defence to look at the chart of each and every ship?

If you do, you must be bonkers.

It's still amazing to most people how you got through 28 years

and came out of it without being bitter.

Well, I would like to be bitter, but I have no time to be bitter.

There is work to be done.

Where the president can decide that it's in the best interest

of the nation or something, and do something illegal.

Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.

-By definition?

-Exactly.

It's fascinating to me how others approach the interview.

That's our agenda. But what, for starters, is its enduring appeal?

On the surface, after all, it's a very simple format.

Two people sitting across from one another and having a conversation.

But underneath, it's often a power struggle.

A battle for the psychological advantage,

with both sides trying to hold on to the initiative.

So who, in the interview, does hold the power?

The interviewer or the interviewee?

I think it's the interviewer.

The interviewer has all the equipment. I mean, it's all his.

This is your stuff, these cameras, the lights, the producer,

the make-up girl, all of this stuff belongs to you.

I come here simply in a taxi that you sent for me.

So there is a sense where the studio belongs to the interviewer.

So the power is all with them.

But it's not really quite as straightforward as that.

It's a balance that's been shifting back and forth

ever since the earliest days of the television interview.

Good evening. This is our television operations room...

Elected to parliament in 1950,

Tony Benn participated in the very beginnings

of the television interview.

The interview, at heart, is a conversation

in which the interviewer has got the opportunity

to decide what he wants to ask, so he shapes the discussion.

And so both sides of the argument, I've experienced.

In our time, since 1950 to the present day,

how has the interview markedly changed, if it has markedly changed?

Well, in the old days, you'd hear interviews

where the question would say,

"Prime Minister, would you tell us again about your latest triumphs?"

-Yes.

-And that was flattery, that wasn't an interview at all.

In the early 1950s, television was in its infancy.

Few people could afford sets,

and coverage of politics and elections was tightly controlled.

And the leading politicians of the day regarded it with suspicion

and distrust.

I have come here not to talk to you,

but just to enable me to see what are the conditions

under which this thing they call TV

is going to make its way in the world.

You can see what it's like. The camera's hot, probing eye.

These monstrous machines and their attendants,

a kind of 20th century torture chamber, that's what it is.

Erm...anything else you'd care to say about the coming election?

No.

However, Anthony Eden was one politician who saw

the potential of television for political advantage,

and used it in what is largely considered to be

the first ever TV political interview.

I would like to say first that, as an interviewer

and as, what I hope you will believe to be an unbiased member

of the electorate, I'm most grateful to Mr Anthony Eden

for inviting me to cross question him on the present political issues.

I would like too to feel that I am asking so far as possible,

those questions, which you yourselves would like to ask in my place.

Well, now, Mr Eden, with your very considerable

experience of foreign affairs, it's quite obvious that

I should start by asking you about the international situation today,

or perhaps you would prefer to talk about home. Which shall it be?

Well, you know, during this election...

In fact, the interview was a party political broadcast.

What is not widely known is that it was exhaustively rehearsed

with the interviewer, Leslie Mitchell, coaching Eden.

From the moment the Socialists got into power in 1945,

-prices started rising.

-Had you said that?

-No, you said that.

As a result, not surprisingly,

Eden was very well prepared for the more challenging questions.

It has often been said, in recent times, that the Conservative Party

is a warmongering party. Is there a shred of truth in that or is there?

I must say, I do resent that question.

I could resent it very much, but I can't believe that the ordinary

Socialist leaders really believe it themselves.

But this deferential style of interviewing was turned on its head

when ITN was launched in September 1955,

and its young presenters began,

for the first time, to ask political leaders more challenging questions.

Good evening. A few minutes ago, the Prime Minister,

the Right Honourable Harold Macmillan

came to Television House...

Robin Day was the one most associated for the punch-up.

And made his reputation on that, and his tradition has continued

and become standard in some programmes.

Yes.

How low does your personal rating, among your own supporters,

have to go before you consider yourself a liability

to the party you lead?

-Well, popularity isn't everything...

-I've been interviewed in that way.

And you feel you're on trial for your life,

and it doesn't bring the best out, but you can cope with it,

obviously, but it creates a situation of winner and loser.

Do you not have any views on the subject yourself?

Robin, why don't you turn to something where you'll get

-a little more help?

-Are you a candidate for the deputy leadership?

-No. You know I'm not.

-I don't know.

-Don't you?

I'm very grateful to have a...do you think that...?

-Now, Robin, leave it. Now, leave it.

-I hadn't started yet.

Well, if you haven't started, then I beg of you not to start

-and turn to something else.

-I was about to.

-You are, really? You promise?

-Yes.

-OK, all right.

I think if you want to do an interview,

you want to bring out how the person you're interviewing,

how he thinks, or how she thinks about something.

But to get that out, the person you're interviewing has to be

relaxed and not feel this is a trap that is prepared for him.

And you can, very difficult questions can be put,

but if they're in a friendly way and they're relevant to the subject,

then I think people will follow it and appreciate it.

-In town tonight.

-Stop!

Once again we stop the mighty roar of London's traffic,

and from the great crowds, we bring you some of the interesting people

who've come by land, sea and air to be in town tonight.

During the '50s, in the world of celebrity,

as it would now be called, interviews were also deferential,

often taking place on cosy sets, over a nice cup of tea.

It's a proud moment for Picture Parade.

Joan Crawford has joined us tonight to tell us

a little about herself, to talk too about her new picture,

and I should tell you, it's her first appearance on television ever.

-Welcome, Joan.

-Hi, Peter. How are you?

-Not frightened, are you?

Yes, I'm scared. Yes.

Joan, there are thousands of things I want to ask you, and I don't know

where to start, but first of all, I think, let's take glamour.

Now will you tell me what is your recipe for it?

-Just live.

-Just live?

-Yes.

In the '60s, a new magazine programme,

Late Night Line-Up, began.

It was co-hosted by Joan Bakewell, one of a new breed

of young, articulate interviewers.

Tonight, BBC One paid tribute to a great scientist.

But as a woman, she faced her own challenges.

In the '60s, where I began,

people noticed the fact you were a woman a good deal more,

and people wrote to me about my clothes

and my hair, they didn't engage with my arguments or anything at all.

They wanted to know where I bought my frock.

So, it was far more girly and flirty and inclined to be trivial.

But I did suffer very much.

There was a very nasty moment when I interviewed an American broadcaster

called David Susskind, who was keen to score points.

He was on a programme called Late Night Line-Up,

He asked, as we began, whether I had children.

Yes, I said, two small children, at home asleep.

And he said, "And why aren't you at home looking after them?

"What's a woman doing with a job in television?

"You've no right on the screen, you're usurping the place of men."

-That was quite shocking.

-Yes.

-It was a shock.

Who most changed it, back in the '50s,

'60s period and so on, who most changed the interview?

The tradition in interviewing was that you didn't interrupt people.

You must remember your manners and allow them to say

what they wanted to say.

John Freeman came along and blew that wide open.

John Freeman's Face To Face was a pioneering format.

First broadcast in 1959, then for a period of three years.

An impressive array of individuals from all walks of life

agreed to be interviewed. Freeman's incisive interviewing style

was to have a huge influence on many people, including yours truly.

..trying to find out what lies behind the mask.

-Are you in the mood to come clean?

-Yes, indeed.

You're on your own, without your scriptwriters,

-and you'll tell us the truth?

-I'll try to, yes.

Often broadcast live, stark lighting and extreme close-ups

created the atmosphere of a psychoanalyst's couch.

Have you any notion of what your anxiety is?

Do you in fact get a kick out of your anxiety?

I have to...anxiety, would you explain that a bit more?

Well, something appears to me, even at the end of this conversation,

to be eating you. You say that happiness is just ahead of you.

There's something troubling you. I'd like to know what it is?

I wouldn't expect happiness. I don't. I don't think that's possible.

Freeman himself was rarely seen, just his shoulder.

But like Robin Day, he dominated the discussion.

John Freeman simply cascaded people with lots and lots

of questions, putting them under enormous pressure,

sometimes bringing them to the point of breakdown.

Have you ever been with a person dying?

Yes, only once.

-Do you remember that?

-Hmm.

Someone very close to you?

-Did it make a vivid impression?

-It did, yes, yes.

-Is that the only time you've seen a person dead?

-Only once, yes.

Let's go right back to your childhood.

John Freeman's Face To Face interviews

were groundbreaking in their time.

I mean, reducing men to tears,

which had never been done on television before.

Fantastic honesty.

People would answer questions that were put to them,

absolutely straightforwardly, and with rigorous honesty.

And that was very thrilling at the time, because it suggested

an entirely new approach to interviewing

and personal relationships. It was shocking and wonderful to watch.

For better or worse, you've become the symbol now of Negro emancipation

in the Southern states.

Are you an adequate symbol? Do you feel that you're adequate?

It is never easy for one to accept the role of symbolism

without going through constant moments of self-examination,

and I must confess that there are moments when I begin to wonder

whether I am adequate or whether I'm able to face all of the challenges

and even the responsibilities of this particular position.

Face To Face was to become a landmark on British television,

and John Freeman set the standard

for the personal personality interview.

In America, since the early '50s, the talk show there

had become very popular, with hosts such as Jack Paar, Steve Allen,

and Johnny Carson attracting millions of viewers

to their late night shows.

On both sides of the Atlantic,

seeing celebrities talk about their lives had become a television event.

"To David, a box of smile."

We give him a lot of gear, he throws it away afterwards.

You'll regret it. Still looking for his Picassos.

See, get it? Get it?!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

When I was a child, I would watch you and then Michael Parkinson,

and I always thought that there was something magical

about the kind of guests that you had.

Seeing famous people on television being themselves was a treat.

It was unusual. "Oh, my goodness, there's Gene Kelly."

You know. And you would, you would stare and think, "Wow."

-There weren't many, there weren't many outlets.

-Yes.

So there weren't many occasions

when you even knew what their real voice was like.

'Michael Parkinson's talk show began in 1971.

From the start, he understood there was an unwritten agreement

between himself and his subjects.

And what's the ideal relationship basically between interviewer

-and interviewee?

-Well, I think it's...

-It's consensual?

It's about understanding the need that both have.

I mean, in our area, the talk show, they're on the show,

not because they love you but because they've got something to flog.

And their understanding must be the better they relate to you,

the better they flog it.

-Yeah.

-And as far as I'm concerned,

I am there to make sure that all the interview is not about that at all,

that I give it a mention, but that what I want from them is a story.

And so that's the deal and it seems to me to be a fair deal.

You must be, come to think of it,

-the richest man I've interviewed.

-You're kidding!

You've had Crosby here!

And he sends care packages to Paul Getty.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You know, you're...

I think that the onus is on the interviewer

to actually create a situation whereby the person

walking down the stairs or walking onto the set or you're opposite,

is in the mood to speak to you.

And I think that can be created best of all by them

feeling that you at least have paid them

the compliment of researching them properly and knowing about them.

But like when I saw all of those people come to see George,

go see George to get beat, and they all paid to get in,

that's the thing, they paid to get in,

and I said, "This is a good idea!"

And right away I start talking, "I am the greatest! I am beautiful!

"If you talk jive you'll fall in five! I cannot lose!"

In America they got old saying. They said, "The nigger talks too much!"

The thing about Ali was I was lucky, and you were lucky too,

in the sense that we were doing a talk show when he was around.

And he was the most extraordinary human being I've ever met.

-I don't know what you think...

-Yeah.

He was an extraordinary man.

But what kind of sport is it, can it be, where a guy,

-where a guy goes in a ring...

-What kind of sport is a car...

-..and gets his jaw broke?

Watch your handling. What kind of sport is this,

when a guy gets in a damn car in your country,

and go around a damn track, and hit a pole and he burn up?!

What kind of sport is that? And a bunch of fools go to watch it!

I don't see no black folks out there going 900 million mile, rrr, boom!

'Also, I mean I was there, like you again,'

where I charted from my first interview in 1971 to my last in '82,

the lifespan, in a sense, of his career.

He was a contender when I met him,

he went to world champion and became heavily politicised

and then, the last interview I did,

he showed the first signs of that terrible illness that,

that in the end, destroyed him.

And you've seen what can happen to fighters?

You've seen those shambling wrecks that go around.

You see them at every boxing occasion.

What people are frightened of is they don't want that to happen to you.

-What, be a shambling wreck?

-That's right. Yeah.

I'm a long ways from being a shambling wreck.

I'm not suggesting you are now,

I'm saying that's what they're frightened might happen.

'It's not often you get that chance

'to encapsulate a man's life'

in your, in your work

and certainly one as tragic as his has become.

And I think also too that you then take the talk show

into the showbiz interview, into a different area.

And that was always, I thought, the best part of it,

when you could actually, on the basic premise of the talk show,

move it into an area where you affected people's perceptions

of other people and informed them about something that was important.

Woody Allen, that was an interesting experience.

Occasionally, you meet somebody who tries to lay down the rules about the interview,

through his agent or himself or say, "You can't talk about this."

And my view and I'm sure your view has always been

you tell them what, what you're going to talk about.

You can't be restricted.

Is it the case you can't see one of your children now and the other one you can?

Is that the silly topsy-turvy manner of it all?

Yeah, why are you so interested in this?

-Well, because...

-I feel...

-No, let me, let me explain to you...

No, I feel you have a morbid interest in this subject. Why?

'If somebody like Allen had actually had his career threatened

'by the affair he had with his daughter-in-law and then married her,

'then I think that's fair.'

There was an awkwardness about the interview from that point on,

but nonetheless we did it, I think it was a good interview, I think it worked.

He didn't like it, his agent didn't like it,

but you can't please them all the time.

Well, I think you can certainly be an actor and not be a movie star.

-Well, but you are a movie star.

-Yes.

-by choice?

Er, seemingly.

-So, you've got a problem?

-Yeah.

NERVOUS LAUGHTER

-And it seems one that's not going to be resolved on this show either.

-No.

My view has always been they've got more to lose than I have,

in a sense of, do you do the show or not?

-Yeah.

-I don't care, frankly. They ought to.

Melvyn Bragg's arts programme, The South Bank Show,

took a different approach. Starting in 1978, for Melvyn,

it wasn't just about the interviewees themselves,

but how their personalities shape their work.

What are you looking for in an interview?

Well, you're looking for somebody that is telling the truth

about their work as near as is possible.

-I think you've got to know the subject thoroughly.

-Yes.

You know this, you did this, and people know if you don't.

You just have to make a little slip and they'll say,

"He hasn't read after the first chapter," or they'll say,

"He's only seen those paintings, he hasn't seen those paintings."

And they know because we're talking to clever people!

What I try to do is to know as much as I can about it,

and then give the appearance that I'm just winging it

as I go along and just trying to establish a situation

in which people feel they can talk about themselves and about their work

without embarrassment and as truthfully as possible.

-Now, the Francis Bacon interview was...

-It worked quite well.

And he's a wonderful talker and I love talking to him.

Well, I've been here for years, about 23 years or more.

Started at his studio at 8.30 or nine o'clock

and he had a row of champagne bottles, cold,

ready for us and the crew.

Well, you know, it'd been bad manners.

Then we went around the restaurant,

where we had a proper meal, with a drink, with the restaurant full.

That was fine. Then they cleared the restaurant and had another meal

with just the two of us to film. It was about four o'clock by then.

And there was a swirl going on in my head

and I was just about holding to the questions.

-You're not interested in fantasy, are you?

-No, not in the least.

-Neither am I, not in the slightest.

-I'm not interested in fantasy.

-No.

-I'm interested in reality.

-And what's reality?

-Let's get this...

-Reality is what exists.

Are you real?

-I...

-To me you're real. There you are.

There you are, Melvyn Bragg. You are absolutely real to me.

And so it got drunker and drunker, and I thought, funnier and funnier.

But I also thought, or I think I thought...

that this is OK, this is what Francis is really like.

But I want to be able to remake in another medium

the reality of, of an image that, that, that excites me.

-Cheerio.

-Cheerio, Francis.

So, I saw it in the cutting room.

I rang him up and said, "Look, Francis, we're drunk.

"But it's good and it doesn't let you down.

"I mean, I've got egg on my face, but it doesn't let you down."

And something you said is very important as well.

You said, "It isn't the questions, it's the answers."

And my questions were ooh-ooh, his answers were terrific.

So, I said, "I'd like to show these bits."

"Well, darling, do what you want."

So, that was that, so we showed it and it was good,

it's good about Francis Bacon, and it explains, says a lot about Francis Bacon.

I'm profoundly optimistic about nothing.

-I don't think you can be...

-How can you be optimistic about nothing, Francis?

-I can be.

-Why?

-Just existing for a moment.

Existing today makes me optimistic.

-Optimistic about what?

-Nothing.

I'm optimistic about nothing.

If you know their work and made it your business to know their work, you have an idea,

you have as good an idea as you can get as to whether they're really telling you something,

not necessarily new, but something important.

If they say something new, well that's a bonus really.

I did four hours of television with Olivier, two two-hour programmes.

He was very generous, he was very funny.

How did you set about becoming a professional actor?

I was always the damnedest fool, you know.

I'd always spoil something.

When I got the chance I would giggle until they had to fire me.

Now, I was starving, and I hadn't got that much, you know,

hadn't got any sense at all!

I don't know how I survived it at all,

I don't know how I'm sitting here with you there.

I just don't know, because I was a twerp, if ever there was one.

'It's exactly like'

when you're talking to somebody you really like

and you know it's clicked.

That's as near as I can get to it.

"I like talking to him, that one's clicked."

And there's a click, you think,

"Yes, he's telling, she's telling the truth and so am I,"

and that's worth getting that, that's it.

The Dennis Potter interview was obviously very difficult

and challenging to do, you know,

because he was so near death, and so on.

Did that give it a great, I don't know,

sense of a frisson or a sense of responsibility for you?

Well, both.

we'd stripped the studio bare because I wanted it

to be a bare television studio - cameras, lights, that was all.

Oh.

I'll only need it when... If there is any spasms, so...

-Do you want me to have it?

-I should put it out of sight, yeah.

Melvyn can pass it to you.

'Every stage, you were looking at a man in pain,'

who knew he was dying, who was determined to talk about it.

And he talked about it in a most exalting terms, which was

another clutch at your throat because you hadn't expected that.

But the most difficult thing of all in that interview,

once we got going, was this -

you know you can do a good interview in seven minutes

if you know it's seven minutes.

You can do a good interview in 30 minutes, whatever the time is.

With Dennis, I'd no idea of the time.

The doctor said, "It'll be about 25 minutes."

Dennis thought he might make 35 or 40 minutes.

It turned out to be 70 minutes.

But you never quite knew when he was going to say, "That's enough."

So you never quite knew

whether you were asking the right questions early enough.

-Or questions you save for the end.

-Yeah.

-You didn't know when to ask them.

-Or how to build it.

-I mean, any good interview's got to build.

-Yeah.

And I didn't know, so I was trying to manage that and so I was really

concentrating on doing the job probably harder than I've ever done.

I've got a GP in Ross who has so gently and carefully led me

to a balance between pain control and mental control where I can work,

believe me, with a passion I've never felt.

I feel I can write anything at the moment.

I feel I can fly with it.

I feel like I can really communicate what I am about

and what I feel, and what the world ought to know.

Did you learn something about,

well, about life and death?

Well, I think what I learned from Dennis Potter,

and I think a lot of people got this,

was that we think of very old age, or we think of dying,

as an enfeeblement, a draining away, a lessening of life, it's over, let it go -

and he turned it on its head!

He said, "No!

"I know I'm seeing this blossom outside my window for the last time."

Last week, looking at it through the window when I'm writing,

it is the whitest, frothiest,

blossomest blossom that there ever could be, you know.

The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous

and if people could see that, you know...

There's no way of telling you, you have to experience it.

The fact is that if you see the present tense,

boy do you see it and boy can you celebrate it, you know?

And you think, yes, he's bringing to bear the fact there are

some things, even in this dying stage that are magnificent,

because it's to do with life.

And I think that shook people, in the sense of moving them

to understanding and to sympathy, to, well, all the things you are.

For many years, politicians have been getting to grips

with the challenges of the television interview.

By the time Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979,

they had refined their technique,

some of them even playing the interviewers at their own game.

-But...

-One moment, you asked the most fundamental thing.

-Well, I know, but...

-I must beg of you.

we're not having a party political broadcast, we're having an interview

-which must depend on me asking some questions occasionally.

-Yes, indeed.

You asked what I know you call the gut question.

Right, It's gone to the gut.

It's gone to the jugular. Let me finish it.

She said herself, in an interview, actually, that your policies

would destroy everything that she'd tried to build up.

-She's not pouring the champagne this morning, is she?

-Brian...

Her close friends are delighted to think you're going to take her job.

Is this an interview about my views or yours?

Let me just get a word in edgeways, if you will forgive me!

All right, certainly, certainly.

The public on this issue,

with regards to the future of the Royal Navy, believe you,

a transient, here today and - if I may say so -

-gone tomorrow politician...

-This is very...

..than an officer of many years' experience.

I'm sorry, I'm fed up with this interview really, it's ridiculous.

Well, thank you, Mr Nott.

Did you enjoy aggressive interviews more than softer interviews

-because it was more of a challenge?

-Yes, I think so.

Yes, I mean, you've got to realise that this is a gladiatorial conflict.

The interviewer's out to get you.

Not to let you put over your case,

not to let you appeal to a wider audience,

to try and puncture or reveal things that they think need revealing.

So, it's gladiatorial.

Now, the way to deal with that is to be well prepared

and to be well prepared is to know what you want to say.

I used to have the answers written down before I went on the programme.

And the trick was to know how to adjust his questions to my answers.

-Right.

-And you could always tell when I was having trouble,

because I would say, "You've asked me the wrong question. you should have asked me this."

Then I would immediately give the answer!

Do you find many Conservatives in your travels around the country

who think that Mrs Thatcher ought to go?

You're not going to carve me up the way you tried to carve Ken up!

I am not in the business of trying to undermine Mrs Thatcher's position.

-I didn't suggest you were!

-Yes, you did, that's what you're on about.

You want to try and undermine the leader of this party in this conference!

Of the then regular figures of Robin Day, Brian Walden

and so on were around, was there one of those that you found

more fruitful to be interviewed by?

Or is it in your hands, really, to make any interview work?

Yes, the word "fruitful" is not one I would have...

HE LAUGHS

I mean, these guys are out to get you.

They're not friends, they're not there to help you,

they are there to make news and to reveal what often you don't want to have revealed.

They want to get at what they think is the truth.

And, I mean, both the two you mentioned were very formidable.

No, I mean, you know, you keep your wits about you.

It might be the case that, in private,

you will have a lusty argument,

and you will listen to other people's opinions,

but you never come over in public like that, ever!

You come over as being someone who one of your backbencher's said

is, "Slightly off her trolley. Authoritarian. Domineering..."

Brian, if anyone's coming over as domineering in this interview, it's you.

Yes, you're very domineering at the moment.

Now, let's deal with the authoritarian thing quietly.

No government has...

'I think there is a tendency'

among some interviewers to turn it into a pitched battle.

One of the techniques that I've always thought of as yours

and always deeply mistrusted, was the sort of personal charm,

the relaxation and then, bang!

Do you think that, in terms of the credibility of the Government

and so on, the stonewall, the cover-up or whatever you call it

over the Belgrano was, in retrospect, a mistake?

No, I don't think it's a mistake.

We had a very, very long and detailed debate.

Everyone accepts that the Belgrano had to be sunk,

at least I hope they do.

-I was going to talk about the cover-up...

-Cover-up about what?

-Well, the cover-up of the facts...

-What fact other than that?

Well, the fact that it was going in a completely different direction,

it wasn't, as Heath said, closing in.

Do you know, ships do zigzag.

Yeah, but it didn't zigzag.

-But ships do change direction.

-Yeah, but it didn't, though, did it?

That ship did change direction!

'Does aggression, in light of what we're saying,'

an aggressive interviewer is often making a mistake by shutting

people up more than opening them up, is he?

I think that you've got to look at it case by case.

I mean, if you take Jeremy Paxman, who's probably state of the art

of the aggressive interviewer, I guess he's had significant success

in actually sort of battering his way through in certain circumstances.

I was entitled to express my views, I was entitled to be consulted...

Did you threaten to overrule him?

I was not entitled to instruct Derek Lewis

-and I did not instruct him, and the truth of...

-Did you threaten to overrule him?

The truth of the matter is that Mr Marriott was not suspended.

-I did not...

-Did you threaten to overrule him?

-I did not overrule Derek Lewis.

-Did you threaten to overrule him?

-I took advice on what I could do...

-Did you threaten to overrule him?

..scrupulously in accordance with that advice.

-I did not overrule Derek Lewis.

-Did you threaten to overrule him?

-Mr Marriott was not suspended.

-Did you threaten to overrule him?

I have accounted for my decision to dismiss Derek Lewis...

Did you threaten to overrule him?

..in great detail before the House of Commons.

'You have to be pretty resolute to take the same question'

I think once with me nine times, as he was determined to try

and get the particular answer he believed existed.

In my case he, he didn't get it, it probably didn't exist.

So he'll have his successes, but on the other hand

I think, as I was saying about your techniques,

they were exactly the opposite but they were just as dangerous.

But whatever the technique, the confrontational style

of interviewing was also making its way across into the entertainment world!

You'd be surprised how sprightly I am!

I...I'm hoping to find out!

-You're blushing!

-Yeah, well, you look like a million dollars!

-Thanks!

-Is that what it cost to get that?

AUDIENCE: Oh!

No, no, no...

In 1989, Channel 4 chose a former barrister

to front its new talk show.

Clive Anderson Talks Back became renowned

for Anderson's dry wit and no-nonsense manner.

Clive, you were a barrister for 14 years.

What is the qualities that you need for an interviewer

that are different to a barrister?

Well, I suppose the major difference is the speed.

In court, you know, things proceed at a leisurely pace,

quite often at the pace that a judge can write things down physically.

So, I tend to speak very quickly anyway and I'm quite,

in the ping pong of conversation, I tend to be quite quick.

Now, that suits some interviewees and not others,

but for all I think it does put a pressure on them.

And they might blurt out something

or come out with something that they hadn't planned to say,

and that spontaneity, I think, can be good.

It can go horribly wrong, but it can be good, as well.

So, how old... You haven't got to 40 yet, have you?

-No.

-Is that a bit young to be writing an autobiography?

Probably is, but then, Laurie Lee started his first autobiography

-was about 11, you know, when he did it.

-Yes, marvellous writer.

But a great writer, that's true, he was a great writer, I knew there was something.

-Barbed.

-Thanks. Thanks. Thanks, you pig-eyed sack of shit.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Right! I am off!

You haven't had many rows really with people on television, have you?

I've had a few.

I got halfway through an interview with The Bee Gees and they actually left,

which is... I don't know if it's happened to you...

-Tended to abbreviate the interview somewhat.

-Yes.

Earlier on, in earlier years

I had a bit of a kerfuffle with Jeffrey Archer, as well.

-You're really catching on tonight, Clive.

-Yes.

Very fast.

Yeah, thank you very much.

LAUGHTER

Didn't know you were a critic as well.

There's no beginning to your talents.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You've moved on to your writing, that's what your famous for...

All the old jokes are the best ones, I've got to admit that.

Yes, I've read your books.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I was, I suppose, being fairly aggressive -

- well ish, anyway - in the interview there,

and I've had one or two times like that.

I think the barrister in me comes out, because I forget,

you see, having been in court, and in court you do suggest

all sorts of things to people, like, "You, you killed him,"

or, "You're lying, officer," or...

But you've never actually said to a guest on television,

"I demand the death penalty," or anything like that?

No, not quite!

But Clive Anderson's style of interview wasn't to everyone's taste.

The celebrity publicists weren't happy with the interviewer

getting almost as much attention as the stars they were trying to promote,

and they were getting a mite nervous.

-Uh-oh. I'm sorry. Hello.

-Welcome, welcome.

But when, in the mid '90s, a feisty American-born comedy writer

took a fresh approach and moved the interview out of the studio,

the celebrities and the publicists

were briefly lulled into a false sense of security.

I don't know what you were allowed, but I was allowed

a ten minute interview, that's it.

And part of the job would be to kind of seduce them

into giving me three days.

So, that was my challenge.

Imelda, I had a ten-minute interview, so I flew all the way to the Philippines.

I knew she didn't, she didn't like journalists,

so I had Theo Fennell give me all his jewellery so she thought,

"Wait a minute, this isn't a journalist."

I also knew she liked, she liked women.

And I was looking pretty good, so she kept me with her for three days.

Many people still call me Meldy, don't they?

-Yes, I won't call you Meldy.

-I have not lost my childlike innocence!

I see the little bit of Meldy in there somewhere...

'And then just flattered her,'

but kind of loved the story.

She read me her poetry.

She said, you know, she said when she was little girl that,

she was, you know, she was a singer.

And then I said, "Oh, Imelda, would you sing for me?"

And she sang 18 songs, including Feelings.

# Feelings

# Oh, whoa, whoa, feelings

# Oh, whoa, oh, feel you... #

It was, it was just like hitting oil.

She opened the treasure trove and then in the end said,

"Do you wanna see the shoes?"

Whereas if you would have walked in day one,

-you'd never get up to that attic.

-No.

But I think we really bonded.

And again, my job as an interviewer, unlike yours, was not to go,

"Do you know you robbed from your country?"

My show was called entertainment.

-Other people didn't like me, let's be very clear.

-Oh, no, no, I can't believe that.

Really didn't like me.

(Donald Trump hated me.)

(Did he?)

Do you have many people have that reaction?

Very few I would think.

I knew that was gonna be a failure.

Those kind of narcissists don't like me.

Don King hated me.

I can tell before arrival it's not gonna work.

Really?

But if they're, if they have a little bit of, um...

irony, uh, the ability to see why they're humorous,

then it'll work, it's a match.

But Donald Trump has neither.

-Can we have a cup of tea?

-Oh, so sorry, how rude.

I know - you gotta teach this woman some manners.

'I'd have to be with them for three days,

'so in the edit we compressed it so it looked like

'I just walked in their house and went to their fridge.'

I didn't - we had dinner the night before.

So, we were dating by the time the cameras went on.

So, it looked like I was rude, which I shouldn't have done.

I should have laid back a lot more.

That suddenly I've got changed into another person, right?

Because the drug I was taking, the slimming drug,

I don't know what it did, so what was I doing even having it?!

But I was 16 and didn't know any better.

-And I remember...

-You think this one injection made you crazy?

I don't, I don't know whether it made me crazy,

but all I can tell you is,

I got so angry with Mum I nearly drew a knife on her.

'The Duchess of York was like an eager puppy, you know,'

'that kept jumping on my leg,'

and I was sort of begging her to not be so revealing.

'So, when we went to her bedroom

'and she had yellow Post-Its on all her drawers'

with the names of what was in the drawers,

I said, "Do you wanna remove those?" And she didn't.

Small pink t-shirts.

Let's see if it's really... Oh, they are pink.

-I know.

-And are they white? They are white.

'So, you're sort of going, "I'm about to hang you."'

But I always say, "Is that OK?"

And she said, "Yeah, fine," and then told really inappropriate stories.

But, you know, you got it in front of you, you have to deal with it.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Aren't you sad you could've had a great life if you knew then what you know now?

I can't, I can't. You can't look back.

I look back all the time and I, I'm miserable when I do.

But I have to look forward now.

And so if you say,

"Gosh, you could have had such a really fantastic life," well...

..yes, and I, and I blew it.

Those were the days when nobody was looking at the edit,

and before they knew it, it was on the television set.

-So, nobody was watching.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

So, the initiative seemed to lie with the interviewers

when Tony Blair swept to power in 1997.

But New Labour brought with it a new ingredient in the interview game.

I suppose there were always people who advised you as to how to tackle a difficult question.

If you were going into an interview someone would say,

"Don't forget this," or, "Try and bring this out,"

which would be an adviser, a communications adviser.

But then the term "spin doctor" came in and rather corrupted the whole process.

The man attributed with causing the rise of spin

is Blair's former media adviser, Alastair Campbell.

I think the reason

that the issue of "spin doctors", so-called, people like myself,

became such an issue at the time that I was doing the job with Tony,

was because I was doing the job at a time that the media age

became a reality and the media was changing out of all recognition.

If you were a top-flight politician,

you have to think about so many things,

that if in your diary three days down the track there is a big interview,

you need somebody who's got part of his mind on that.

Well, it's now our pleasure to welcome the man who arrived

yesterday here at the Labour Party Conference,

and we're going to be talking to him right now.

-Prime Minister, welcome.

-Thanks.

-Top of the morning.

And just beginning with yesterday's story, briefly, about...

One of the stories about Iraq...

-ALISTAIR CAMPBELL:

-You see, if he was doing an interview with you -

say on your Sunday morning programme -

he would have expected me

-to have thought about that probably a week in advance...

-Yes.

..and to have done him a note,

which he'd have read on the Saturday. Probably.

Sunday morning, often in the car on the way to the studio,

-I would have been you in the car.

-Right.

-I would have been throwing him difficult questions.

If there were difficult questions that we were worried about,

he might have phoned Gordon Brown,

Peter Mandelson, Charlie Falconer - somebody else -

-and got a...

-Yeah.

-Just to get his brain in gear.

So, you're throwing him the difficult questions

and then he needs five or ten minutes just maybe to chill out on his own,

then he'll go out, he's with you, and he's doing the interviews.

Britain made it very clear - and so did the United States -

in the 1980s,

when Saddam started to use chemical weapons in the Iran War,

that was totally unacceptable, so...

But we still supplied him with weapons AFTER he'd used chemical weapons, didn't we?

Well, there's a lot of dispute about that. I wasn't in government at the time.

We prided ourselves, I think,

on having anticipated every question.

Usually, it would be obvious. It'd be whatever was big in the news at the time,

whatever the big political issues were, whatever was coming up.

But every now and again you'd just get a...

A sort of left ball, left curveball, coming out of nowhere.

And I can remember, again, one of yours, where you suddenly

looked with that sort of lean-forward look that you do

and Tony was sort of thinking, "What's coming next?"

-And you just... You asked him if he prayed with George Bush.

-Yeah.

But both you and he are, are great...

Greatly men of faith and so on.

I mean, do you pray together?

-Pray together?

-Mm.

How do you mean?

We hadn't seen that one coming,

and Tony did what John Prescott used to call his Bambi look.

Oh, his...

Where he's sort of slightly taken aback

and then you could see the mind whirring,

-and Tony's mind whirs pretty quickly.

-Yeah.

-I can't remember exactly what he said. It was basically "no", I think.

-Yes.

Do you say prayers together for peace, you and the President?

Well, we don't say prayers together, no, but I'm sure he, in his way,

hopes for peace and I hope for peace, too.

For the public to get something out of it,

the interviewee does need to be challenged a little bit.

And, in fact, often needs to be challenged a lot.

And you need that sense of the challenge

being strong and being tough

for the public then to see,

"Well, this guy looks like he's thought it through.

"He knows what he's talking about."

And even if they don't agree with you at the end of it,

at least they can see your arguments are being challenged and make

a judgment as to whether you've thought it through.

-There is no evidence Lord Ashcroft has done anything.

-I'm not asking...

-I have no reason to think he hasn't complied...

-I'm asking...

I'm asking for evidence you have at least been intellectually curious enough, in this current climate,

to discover whether or not your Deputy Chairman

is resident in this country for tax purposes!

As you know, I'm a rather intellectually curious person.

I have no reason to think...

A lot of these interviews now, in footballing terms,

they become 0-0 draws.

The politician is trying to communicate something to the public.

The interviewer is thinking, "It's my job to stop him doing that.

"I want to take him down path A, path B or path C,

"because I know that's where the politician doesn't want to go."

The politician is thinking, "I don't particularly want to go down there."

So, they both are operating from a defensive mindset.

I think, for the public, it gets quite boring.

It's a simple question! "Are you resident in Britain for tax purposes?"

I will, of course, keep giving the same answer and that is my answer.

-William Hague, thanks very much.

-Thank you.

So, it seems, in the modern political interview,

we've come to something of a stalemate,

where it's not clear who has the upper hand.

Morning, folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics.

From its studio just across the road from Parliament, Andrew Neil's

Daily Politics show has been grilling politicians for the last eight years.

I knew that the way you would reply to these questions would be playing the man rather than the bull.

Well, you're the one playing the man, Andrew.

-You didn't even have the grace...

-I'm the one interviewing YOU.

If you invite me on to your show, I'll answer your questions.

You didn't even have the grace to tell me this is the kind of interview it was going to be!

-Well...

-More fool me.

-All right, we'll leave it on that, then. Anita.

You know, we've come a long way from the...

The days of deference in this country,

when interviewers in the 1950s

would basically say, "So, Prime Minister, "what message do you have for a grateful nation?"

Exactly. That was the '50s, wasn't it?

-And has it changed...

-But maybe the pendulum's gone too far the other way, David.

Maybe it's just that almost every interview -

and I include myself in this. I've made the same mistake.

Almost interview we go at now is,

"So, when did you stop beating your wife?"

And the spin doctors have made that worse.

The aggression came in.

And aggression became almost the default position

for interviewing politicians.

Then the spin doctors came in to teach the politicians

how to handle this aggression.

But it actually made it worse, because the, the...

They taught the politicians how not to answer the question,

how to play for time.

Techniques that meant they could get round the difficult questions,

which made us more aggressive. You know,

"Answer the question," we started to say.

And I think that's what upset the viewers -

they hate too many interruptions from people like me.

They hate even more politicians not answering the question.

And the first time you interviewed David Cameron,

before he was Prime Minister,

the Conservatives' spin doctors tried to...

To reduce your range in that interview?

Yes, they tried all sorts of things.

And I teed it up saying, "Here are all the condit..."

Cos I think viewers have a right to know

the circumstances and the conditions

-within which the interview was given.

-I think that's absolutely vital.

If ever someone says they won't discuss a subject,

if you're going to go ahead with the interview,

you've got to say that at the beginning.

"I WOULD like to talk to you about Libya, but you've said, for reasons I don't understand, you won't."

The Daily Politics has never interviewed David Cameron

since he became party leader - it was difficult to arrange one -

but today is the day, though his office made some rather strange conditions.

It had to be outside. We had to be standing up.

It would only be for five minutes, even though he kept us waiting for half an hour.

We know our place. We're used to that sort of thing.

In the end, as you will know, David, once you get them there,

you're then in charge cos they can hardly walk off - and if they do, you've got a story.

So, when he came out of the hotel, I jumped up onto the kerb,

so I was then eye-to-eye with him.

'And then I just thought, "I'll just keeping asking questions, cos he can hardly walk off!" '

By cutting their inheritance tax,

you'll give them ANOTHER advantage and you've already said social mobility's in decline!

Well, I don't think that it's right to take away

40% of people's savings and people's homes when they die. This is not...

'And I could see the spin doctors

'getting more and more angry off camera. But my own view is,'

if spin doctors aren't angry, I'm not really doing my job.

Do you regret calling supporters of grammar schools "delusional"?

I think it's very important in politics to choose your words carefully.

-Sometimes I may have been over-enthusiastic...

-That wasn't careful.

..in what I've said. But the message I really want...

I get the message but do you regret calling them "delusional"?

-I've chosen my words, as I've just said... I have chosen my words very carefully today, Andrew.

-Right.

Sometimes, you can get more out of somebody

almost if you lull them into a false sense of security.

And you're the master at doing that,

and none of us almost do that any more.

We... We're still too monotone.

-I mean, we... I think everybody sees themselves as being a Jeremy Paxman.

-Yeah.

And I think sometimes, instead of saying,

"I'm going to nail this politician -

"he's taken a totally hypocritical position,"

we need to say, "What should we find out tonight?

-"What do we need to find out from this politician..."

-Yes.

-"..that he hasn't told us before?"

And, as you know, it's human nature.

I'm not going to open up to you if you're like... Like this.

-Yes. Absolutely.

-But I WILL open up to you if you say,

-"Of course, the economic situation IS very difficult at the moment, isn't it, Prime Minister?"

-Yes.

And then they're much more likely to say, "Well, Andrew, actually, it's REALLY difficult."

I think the one thing they do know - and I think it's only right -

is they know we are not on their side.

And like the political interview,

the celebrity talk show has also come under the sway

of publicists and PR agents.

When I first started interviewing in the '60s, I mean it wasn't there.

It really didn't exist.

And then when I came back to doing a talk show in the '90s,

I mean, God Almighty! I mean, it was like fighting through a thicket,

you know, to get to a subject.

But I took the view - and I think you might have done, too -

I was detached from all that.

I used to leave my producers and production staff to deal with all that.

As far as I was concerned, I would make a judgment about what I could ask and what I couldn't,

and it was nobody's business but my own.

Stephen Fry, you... You amaze me. You do.

You're like a Gordon Ramsay figure in my world.

Oh, thanks(!)

-Well, no, because...

-No, sorry. Oh, thanks!

'If you go on a talk show now...'

the bargain is really that you're there to amuse.

..all kinds of things everybody here knows that I am completely ignorant on.

This happened to me on... By a journalist the other day.

They, said, "So, what, what do you think about Katie Price?"

I said, "I don't know who she is!"

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-I'm so...

'So, the whole thing would be a jolly party and the producers can breathe a sigh of relief'

that nothing embarrassing has happened, nobody's lost their temper,

-or you haven't had a Meg Ryan moment, as...

-Ah.

-As they're now known, I'm sure.

We all have a much more sophisticated view of the medium

and what's expected of us and what we can get away with

and what we can hide. Er...

And I... And I think there's a collusion in that with the people asking the questions.

I mean, you look at most celebrity interviews now and they're...

They're colluding pieces of entertainment.

APPLAUSE Prime Minister...

The point of this series is that I interview celebrities -

interesting people who've had interesting lives.

It doesn't get, for me, much bigger than the serving Prime Minister.

So, I know why I'm here. Why are YOU here?

-First of all, call me Gordon, please...

-OK.

'The nature of television has changed from being'

professional men...

..asking you quite, sort of, patrician, clubbable things,

to being much more empathetic.

And so the nature of interviews is empathy.

So, if you look at, say for instance, Gordon Brown appearing on...

Being talked to by Piers Morgan during the last election,

where he talks about the death of his children...

You know, she would be nine this year and, you know,

you think all the time of, you know,

the first steps and the first words

and the first time you go to school, and it's just not been there.

This is the happiest time of your life and suddenly it becomes

the most grief-stricken time of your life.

What you're looking for there is the empathy of the audience.

And that is the great emotion of almost all television now -

is empathy, and it certainly is in interviews.

So, after 50 years of tough questioning,

heated discussions, spin and just plain publicity,

the television interview constantly evolves,

and goes on evolving.

I think television has loosened up how people feel about relationships.

It might be just as though they were talking in a club or over dinner or something,

and I like the informality of that.

And I do always try to keep in mind that this is not a private dialogue.

This isn't just me having a conversation

with the Prime Minister or the leader of the opposition.

I am there in some way representing the people.

But the one thing you can absolutely guarantee

is that the curiosity of the public

to see into the lives, or to hear the explanations,

of well-known figures will not go away.

The greatest thing television's given me is working with talented people,

doing something we all think's worth doing. There's nothing like it.

It's been a massive stroke of luck.

Well, looking back over the last hour,

plenty of hints for would-be interviewers at home.

For instance, any good interview has got to build.

It's not the questions that matter - it's the answers they trigger.

If the spin doctors aren't angry, you're not really doing your job.

And, of course, for God's sake, listen!

But it's clear that as long as human beings like to talk to each other,

the television equivalent is here to stay.

Good news for interviewers - and, hopefully, for viewers.

But let's conclude in the way we always used to do

when we first started in television.

We'd turn in to the camera and say,

"Well, I'm afraid we've run out of time.

"The clock has beaten us once again.

"Goodbye for now,

"and stay tuned for Muffin The Mule."

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

-Thank you. That was wonderful, Ruby.

-Thank you.

-I can't believe I'm telling you about interviews!

-No, but...

The God of interviews and I'm sitting here like a putz.

It felt absolutely natural. Absolutely natural.

-I didn't write it earlier.

-No. Nor did I!