For someone whose main bodies of work I’ve tended to neglect, Jeremy Paxman must have summoned a Herculean effort to join my TV treasures. Alternatively it’s my realisation that the UK media world would be an infinitely poorer place without him. From his time as a nodding rectangular head to an independent silvery beard with licence to grill, Paxo has, considering his usual place on the outer reaches of the schedules, punched above his weight to occupy my affections.
I probably first encountered his on-screen persona in the early 1980s when he was an occasional reporter on BBC1’s Panorama. The current affairs series was never a must-see but I have a feeling a certain anti-Thatcher peace-loving Exeter undergraduate may have watched this 1980 period piece presented by Paxman.
Several years later I may occasionally have returned early enough from work to see him host the Six o’Clock News although in the mornings we as a family traditionally preferred to have breakfast and scurry around the house to Radio 4’s Today programme rather than tuning in to the Beeb’s Breakfast Time, where in 1988 Jeremy would be spotted in appropriately shiny light attire.
A year later he moved to BBC2’s late-evening programme Newsnight, with which he would quickly become synonymous. I remember as a youngish number-cruncher/analyst at the Beeb’s Broadcasting Research Department being involved in a joint research project on the show, and the first presentation I ever gave was to the scarily earnest editor Tim Gardam in the Newsnight offices. Wow! There was the presenter himself looking busy striding between the desks. Thank God he wasn’t in my audience interrogating me on my summary of the programme’s audience figures. Mind you, he’s not always that hot on statistics! Still that project turned out to be a good gig because my work with colleague Moira Bovill was selected for a European research conference in Madrid the following January. Such travel treats were rare!
Later in 1990 he was on hand to host the edition following Thatcher’s sudden resignation which I may in part have watched, so tumultuous was the event. However, it was for his abrasive but incisive interviewing style that he became famous, not least for his persistent repeating the same question of the Home Secretary Michael Howard in 1997. Yet even Paxo failed to secure an honest answer from the ever-oily Tory minister. Most politicians dreaded facing him on Newsnight, knowing that being unceremoniously skewered, albeit in front of only a million viewers, could be curtains for a parliamentary career, as in this amusing 2009 episode of BBC comedy The Thick of It. A few, like Peter Mandelson, actually relished the challenge and Anne Widdecombe’s survival strategy was, as she put it, “I simply stared at his tie”.
Amongst his many interviewees were UK and world leaders of all kinds. Inevitably Tony Blair was accorded longer-form sessions with Jeremy and, even though I may not have seen them on Newsnight they would usually make it to the main news headlines the following day, as in 2001 before the Blair bubble finally burst. Paxman was also the go-to interviewer on the live BBC Election Night coverage, filling in the gaps between incoming results. What I liked about him was his readiness to banter with guests and treat the more pompous oafs with the condescension they so richly deserved. That includes you, Mayor Boris Johnson!
However, that doesn’t mean I approved of all his snide comments. During the 2005 General Election broadcast I remember watching in disgust as he was downright rude to a victorious George Galloway just because he had defeated the black woman Labour incumbent Oona King. For me, and many others, he crossed the line, and I was no fan of Galloway! He lived up to his old sneering Spitting Image puppet that night: “Yeee-eeeess” indeed.
Fortunately there is more to Jeremy Paxman than poking politicians and would-be social commentators with a sharp stick. Channel-hopping has led me to dip into the world of college clever-clogs that is University Challenge. I find his exchanges with the students as equals quite endearing but recoil in horror when he comes over all superior. I can’t believe he’s been hosting the show since 1994!
Away from the rarified world of current affairs, Paxman has proved an adept writer and presenter of history-themed documentaries such as Empire. In 2006, he also became the subject of a surprisingly moving Who Do You Think You Are?, showing a reassuringly emotional side when shedding a tear on learning of a Victorian ancestor’s struggle with poverty. The great Jeremy Paxman was human after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment