feeling listless

Reality Check Parkinson. Last Night. Michael Parkinson has been a chat show host for years (apart from that gap in the 1980s) and in his time has interviewed some world renouned people. He's known for collecting guests with something in common and last night it must have seemed like a winner. Err... The first real guest, Martine McCutcheon, former soap actress, treading the boards intermittently in 'My Fair Lady'. As you would expect, bit of flirting, the usual. Then we have Terry Wogan, chat show host, Mike's golfing buddy, presenter of Children in Need (his presumed reason for being there) and The Eurovision Song Contest. It was clear from the start that this wasn't the Tel who introduces 'Aunties Bloomers'. From nowhere he turned into a stand-up comic, a likable Bob Monkhouse, with a ready wit and jokes galore. Wind him, up let him go, and considering everything I was laughing. I was laughing at Terry Wogan, the epitomy of Radio Two and pullovers. How? And then my eye boggled out of my head... 'Now my next guest has been voted the sexiest woman in the world, she's an actress and singer ... Jennifer Lopez ...'

I'm sorry, what?

Alright ... it wasn't a complete shock ... it had already been mentioned a few times before hand in the previous interviews. But I didn't quite believe it ... rather like you never completely believe the light in a fridge goes off when you shut the door. Now I don't know how often 'J-Lo' appears on US chatshows, but her appearance in the UK are few and very far between. But sure enough, there she was launching into a production number which just seemed too big for Studio Two at BBC Shepherd's Bush. It was an intermittent tune, the backing vocalists doing much of the work. But it still looked wrong. Oh well, I thought, at least they arn't going to talk to her but ...

Sure enough, she paced uncomfortably over towards the craggy face of Parkinson, his mouth grinning like the entrance to a cave. Terry, who'd interviewed a galaxy of stars on his own chat show during the 1980s looked for all the world like Lester Burnham in the scene where he's introduced to Mira Savuri in 'American Beauty'; Martine was obviously a bit star struck. And there they sat for moments. What was Lopez doing here? Shouldn't she be out clubbing or something. What could Parkinson possibly ask her?

Then the interview began. Well sort of. Given someone that he has an actual interest in, Parkinson can get under the skin of some actors. But here there was too much of a generational gap. Like Lester, Parky didn't seem to know how to relate to her, or how to get her to talk. His almost first question was about what it was like to be in car boot with George Clooney for a day. J-Lo took a moment to remember that film she was in four years ago, with some guy who was just George and not all that famous then. He wanted to know all about the arrest, about Sean Coombs, about growing up in projects; but the interview style was too bland; too obvious. He asked about whether how her parents felt when they heard -- Lopez looked at him, as if to say, 'How they hell do you think they felt?' and gave little away. The embarassing moment during the Woody Allen interview, when Woody got testy over Mike's incessent questions about Mia was immediately brought to mind. She just wanted to talk about her music and films -- like some tabloid hack he wanted to talk about seedier sides of her past. It's too soon Mike. Wait a few years until her fame has faded a bit.

Things proceeded in the same fractured style as this review. He resorted his usual desperate measure of 'It's been reported that ....' type questions, quoting some fiction, easily parried with a 'not true'. He seemed suprised that Lopez wasn't going to be an obvious star (hasn't endured 'Anaconda', I suppose). Then he brought up the subject of her arse (very original). She was gracious and sparkly, and won a fan here, at least for the person if not the music. To some extent I can believe she hasn't changed too much from that 'girl from the Bronx' which she described herself as -- if I had her money I might go a bit overboard as well on appearance riders. Mike drew in McClucheon, to talk about their similar backgrounds, which also didn't fit. Terry didn't fit in the middle there either. Nothing fitted within this fitful interview. Which felt like it was finishing from the beginning. Which exemplifies all good Reality Checks -- elements which on an initial glance seem similar will in fact explode on contact. A bit like anti-matter.