It would have been better for all concerned last night on Sky One if Cat Deeley had stuck to interviewing Kylie Minogue about her battle against breast cancer, instead of fawning over her.
Disclosure: I'm a Kylie fan but the world exclusive interview ended up leaving me annoyed at what might have been. This was not the reaction I was expecting. I had settled myself in front of the sofa to hear about one woman's experience of breast cancer, how she lived through it, the shock, the tears, the joy and the laughter.
Like for many of you, Kylie has been part of my life for an awfully long time and I say that not out of any confession that I am a tragic fan, but exactly what I say, a small part of my life but nevertheless a part: I grew up in Australia, she was on Neighbours, she launched her recording career with Locomotion, she moved to Britain, became a huge star, sang a lot of songs, sang at the Olympics and so on.
She has always been around and I didn't think it was asking for much - that first interview that the pop singer had given since her cancer fight be a genuinely moving affair.
Alarm bells rang out at the start when Deeley interrupted herself before she had even asked the first question to say " I have to tell you how amaaaaaaaazing you look".
It just struck me that the tone was all wrong.
In her favour Deeley had empathy and kept Kylie at her ease through out, no small achievement considering how Kylie never appears that comfortable during conventional interviews, let alone one detailing the trauma of her cancer.
But Deeley never probed the genuine insights that Kylie offered up, preferring to change tack just at the wrong moment and ask about, oh, her favourite cafes in Paris. Her gushy manner also seemed to reduce Kylie to a level of inarticulateness, which the pop star herself acknowledged, just when she wanted to be at her most lucid to describe her experiences.
What was it like for a woman so in the public eye and to have a partial mastectomy and lose all her hair and have to put her life back together? Deeley did get onto the hair in a straightforward way but festooned her question in such a flood of compliments as to rob the answer of impact.
Despite it all, Kylie came across very well - she wanted to tell this story. I just wonder if in the hands of someone more skilled in the art of the confessional interview just how memorable it could have been. Where was Oprah when you needed her?
And eagle eyed viewers would have noticed at the end of the credits the production company for the programme was revealed to be a division of Mushroom Records, Kylie's Australian record label. Hmmmm.
