All park and no bite

News of Match Of The Day’s imminent return to the BBC after a temporary stay at the ITV1 halting site under its alias The Premiership has caused all sorts of bother. Well, a modicum of bother, which isn’t all that troubling unless you’re professional Yorkshire man and venerable English institution Michael Parkinson.

Upon hearing the news that his chat-show was going to be jostled from its usual slot to make way for the football highlights, Parky threw his pig’s trotter out of the pram and portentously declared that he was so insulted by this shoddy treatment he was taking his business elsewhere. To ITV1, in fact, where he will square up to the football highlights every Saturday night next autumn and show them who’s boss. This grave news was greeted with the kind of reaction you’d expect from the Great British public on such a solemn occasion: complete indifference, interrupted only by intermittent giggling at the notion that Parkinson still genuinely believes anyone gives two hoots where he takes the aging light-ent dinosaur that is his increasingly creaky show.
It’s a sad admission to make, but I have been completely obsessed with Parky ever since reading a newspaper interview he did a couple of years ago, in which he stated that the mysterious X factor that set his particular television show apart from others of the genre, was that he only ever had guests on who were experts in their field and really brilliant at what they do. With such folk being so noticeably thin on the ground these days, I couldn’t help but marvel at how he’d managed to sustain his show for the many centuries it appears to have been on air while simultaneously exercising such restrictively stringent quality control.
Then I started watching it.
On the last two episodes of Parkinson that I have lucky enough to see, the guests have been Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Gordon Ramsay, Davina McCall, Patrick Kielty, Boris Becker and Bruce Forsyth.
Yep, I know what you’re thinking - move over Muhammad Ali, bugger off Billy Connolly, eat your heart out Rod Hull and Emu. Let’s examine them closer.
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen: In the field of being a complete ponce, wearing crushed velvet shirts with extravagant cuffs and flouncing around Britain making suburban living rooms resemble the interior of a Bedouin tent for under 500 quid, he is peerless. Appeared on Parkinson to plug his television show.
Gordon Ramsay: Renowned for his ability to cook dinner while bullying those weaker than himself at the same time, his mastery in the kitchen has earned him more Michelin stars than any other British chef. The contempt which he reserves for celebrity chefs is legendary, which is weird considering most people who can’t afford to eat in his restaurants know him as “that chef off the telly who swears a lot.” Appeared on Parkinson to plug his television show.
Davina McCall: Is there no beginning to this woman’s talents? A television presenter and former drug addict who shouts a lot. Few television presenters and former drug addicts with so little of interest to say shout louder. Appeared on Parkinson to plug her television show.
Patrick Kielty: A once fearless funnyman who made his name in Belfast’s Empire Comedy Club, the bearpit other bearpits call The Gig From Hell. Has latterly abandoned his stand-up roots to concentrate on presenting anodyne television programmes and having fascinating hair. Few could make such a difficult transition seem so effortless. Appeared on Parkinson to tell an ancient “true story” about a nun and a dildo.
Boris Becker: Nicknamed “Boom! Boom!” for his ferocious serve-and-volley technique on the tennis court and unfortunate talent for impregnating women he doesn’t know particularly well in restaurant cupboards. Appeared on Parkinson to plug his autobiography and set the record straight: “It wasn’t in the restaurant cupboard, it was on the stairs.”
Bruce Forsyth: A peerless master of his domain, that domain being a showbiz arena that encompasses the presentation of truly awful gameshows, being an all round entertainer, coining bizarre catchphrases and overcoming the obstacles of a lantern jaw, a lisp and a bad toupee to pull and marry a former Miss Universe 30 years his junior. Not only is Bruce very good at what he does, he’s better than most at doing whatever it is they do too. A genuine superstar in a world of talented, beautiful people, somebody has to be the Guv’nor. Appeared on Parkinson to plug his new television programme.
So now we know. This stellar cast of gifted specialists provides proof, it proof were needed, that Parky wasn’t spoofing when he said that he will only allow the best of the best to skip merrily down the steps of his show’s set. It’s a typically no-nonsense Yorkshire attitude that’s refreshing in an age when it seems that chat show hosts only have to whistle down t’pit and some dead-eyed, two-bit one-trick pony will come plodding out, happy to hawk their new television programme, book or record without giving anything - not even a 300-year-old gag about a nun and a vibrator – of themselves in return apart from a few torpid soundbites.
Parkinson is dead. Long live Parkinson.