The Media Show (R4) | iPlayer
Chain Reaction (R4) | iPlayer
It’s quite astonishing how much I was forced to think about Jeremy Clarkson last week. It’s as if he’s moved into my lounge or something, crashed on the sofa after a big night out and then refused to go home. Now I have to manoeuvre around his lanky frame to get on with my day. It’s odd. When he’s on the telly I don’t think about him at all.
One of the oddest aspects of the Jeremy Clarkson affair is the language around it. Not just the choice of the cutesy word “fracas”, nor the alleged anti-Irish slurs Clarkson may have used (when shouting at the producer who couldn’t magic up a hot meal at the end of the day), but the TV language. As Giles Coren pointed out on this week’s The Media Show, if you’re the person who is on the TV screen, then you are the “talent”. “It implies that everyone else working on the show isn’t,” he said. The other speakers also talked of “talent” that needed to be “managed”.
This was, as ever with The Media Show, a clever and revealing discussion, much the best I’ve heard about the Clarkson affair. Coren was candid about what going on telly can do to your head. He admitted he’d had the odd tantrum while filming a documentary, including a standup row with a producer about getting a cup of coffee. Everyone agreed that food is important on a TV shoot. I did notice, though, that the indulgence among the speakers was all towards Clarkson. The position of the producer, Oisin Tymon, was never discussed. He wasn’t even mentioned by name, though someone did say they felt sorry for him. I do think that anyone, anywhere, has the right to do their job without being punched. Even if they’re doing it badly. Even if the person doing the punching is more important than they are. As Coren pointed out, it’s hard to tell whether TV makes presenters into monsters, or whether TV just finds monsters and puts them on screen.
So, The Media Show was an insight into TV talent. Chain Reaction is too. The idea behind the show, if you haven’t listened (why?), is that last week’s interviewee becomes next week’s interviewer, so we get a long list of famous people (usually comedians or actors) interviewed by a similar person who they admire or have worked with. Each person’s interview technique is very different, so the show is hit and miss. The last two week’s programmes, which featured Bob Mortimer interviewing Vic Reeves, and then Vic Reeves talking to Olivia Colman, have been tricky listens. I love Reeves and Mortimer but they don’t do interviews, really. When they were together it was funny but utterly random; when Reeves talked to Colman, I had to switch off. He had no questions; he didn’t really listen to the answers. Argh! It was frustrating.
This week, Colman talked to Sharon Horgan, and I enjoyed the whole show. Colman managed to take the mickey out of the interviewing process (“Do you have a favourite sibling? Do you have a favourite child?”) and also get revealing answers. Revealing of both Horgan and herself, which made up a bit for the week before. So we learned that Colman can’t cope with too much to do (and then her husband points out that what she’s worrying about could be done in a hour), that Horgan prefers writing to acting, and that despite being born in England she considers herself Irish – “it’s very important to me that I’m Irish”. The chat brought out the contrast between Horgan’s career-minded pragmatism and Colman’s family-comes-first attitude. As well as both women’s wit. Colman was a great host. Give her a show. Nurture the “talent”. Manage it.
