Today’s chat show sycophants make Parky look like the Spanish Inquistion
ON MONDAY night, an ongoing tragedy f i nally draws to a close. Michael McIntyre’s BBC1 chat shows ends its first series. Let us all prepare to weep — tears of joy! And pray it won’t come back soon.
For the stand-up comedian’s disastrous venture into the world of chat represents everything reprehensible about modern celebrity culture.
For six terrible weeks, star after star t r otted onto Michael’s execrable show to be hosed down with extra-thick treacle and a torrent of full cream compliments.
It was just like the old pals’ act regurgitated regularly on shows such as Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr’s Chatty Man, Paul O’Grady Live and The Graham Norton Show.
Except that McIntyre was much, much worse. Indeed, in the sickening world of puffery and publicity, he has somehow managed to plumb new depths of celebrity obsequiousness.
When divorced, throttled, scandal- strewn Nigella was on, cowardly McIntyre dodged all the important questions and merely asked her about cakes. Pathetic.
Six long weeks ago, his very first guest, Sir Terry Wogan, was introduced as a ‘broadcasting legend’. Got that? A legend, no less. Right up there with Richard the Lionheart, Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill.
‘ You are a l egend,’ Michael repeated, before showing clips of Wogan’s own chat shows and assuring the chief old codger that he ‘did it so well.’
Later, that crashing bore Lord Sugar was told his ‘life has been remarkable’ and asked: ‘How does it feel to you, having all this acclaim?’
SELF- SATISFIED but mediocre singer Lily Allen was described as ‘ sensationally talented’ and when asked by McIntyre why she had been ubiquitous recently, airily replied that she was ‘out promoting’ her new album.
‘You can now pre- order it,’ Lily said, almost an instruction to the studio audience and those watching at home.
And that is what really bothers me. Not only must we suffer the greasy old pals’ act that passes for chat show badinage, we must also somehow stomach celebrities who don’t even bother to hide their contempt for the public.
Viewers are treated like idiots, as potential revenue sources who might be dazzled enough to dig deep and make the stars richer and richer.
It is not about entertainment any more, it is all about the plug.
From McIntyre and the rest, there is not even a pretence at impartiality or objectivity. For the supposed interlocutors and their guests, it is just one great big toady, oily love-in; an incestuous flamenco of fawning that is creeping out of control.
On t he chat show ci r cuit, criticisms are never, ever raised. Searching questions are noted by their absence.
Instead, a carefully curated gang of ultra-guests are showered with so much praise that anyone with a scrap of decency and self-respect would scream for mercy. Instead, they just lap it up — they now take it as their due.
In his Seventies heyday, Michael Parkinson was criticised for being soft on his guests, but he was like Torquemada compared to the sycophancy exhibited by today’s grease-up merchants.
At l east Parky had a bit of dignity about him — and in addition was wise enough to keep a professional distance.
By comparison, today’s gang are all in it together. They demand complete deference at all times, they increasingly want — and get — nothing less than lionisation. And distressingly, it is a culture that has spread, like an oil slick, from showbusiness into politics.
It reached an apogee of sorts this week when preposterous Tory MP Nadine Dorries banned a journalist from attending a party to launch her new novel — because his newspaper had given her book a bad review.
HONESTLY. Judy Garland in her pomp behaved more sensibly than Nadine. Yet the MP for Mid Beds is determined to be a diva, adopting the perceived behaviour patterns of the shiny modern celebrity who feels above criticism from the grubby hordes.
Their l i ves are whitewashed. After breaking a fingernail they issue demands that their privacy be respected. They cannot see how ridiculous they have become.
And as you tune into yet another TV chat show, do you ever get the terrible feeling, as familiar faces swim before your eyes with sickening regularity, that you are seeing the same guests over and over and over again? That is because you are.
No chat show series on any mainstream channel can or will be made without at least one visit by David Walliams, Russell Brand, James Corden, Ricky Gervais, Gary Barlow and Stephen Fry, with Gordon Ramsay, Jack Whitehall and Rob Brydon bringing up the rear. All men, of course, though Jennifer Saunders and Sarah Millican are becoming worryingly omnipresent, too.
Is the end in sight? It could be for Michael McIntyre, who finishes his run with a special guest appearance by James Corden. Meanwhile, Rob Brydon launches his new BBC celebrity show, with appearances by Jennifer Saunders — and James Corden. Have we been here before?