The Michael Parkinson Show
| Parkinson | |
|---|---|
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|
| Starring | Michael Parkinson |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 31 |
| No. of episodes | 540 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network |
BBC1 (1971–82, 1998–2004) ITV (1987–88, 2004–07) |
| Original release |
First run: 19 June 1971 – 10 April 1982 Second run: 28 March 1987 – 23 July 1988 Third run: 9 January 1998 – 22 December 2007 |
Parkinson is a British television chat show that was presented by Michael Parkinson. It was first shown on BBC1 from 19 June 1971 to 8 May 2004 then on ITV from 4 September 2004 to 22 December 2007.
Parkinson began in 1971 when the host was offered a series of eight shows by the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment, Bill Cotton. It was to be transmitted during the "summer lull" in a late-night slot on Saturdays (which continued throughout its run), plus from 1979 a second mid-week edition when the series was on air. A parallel series was shown in Australia between 1979 and 1982. That year, 1982, Parkinson left the BBC to be co-founder and presenter on the ITV breakfast television station TV-am, where after many schedule upheavals he ended up presenting the Sunday morning programme with his wife, Mary Parkinson.
Michael Parkinson would eventually return to the BBC for further series. However, in between his work for the BBC he did two series of chat shows for Yorkshire Television in 1987–1988 as Parkinson One to One, the format being an interview with a single guest (sometimes employed during his time with the BBC).
He returned to the BBC in August 1995 to present a series of retrospective shows, Parkinson: The Interviews, featuring memorable excerpts, eventually presenting a new, revived version of his chat show on BBC One in January 1998. However, in April 2004, ITV announced that it had "poached" the interviewer from the BBC from the autumn of that year. Parkinson said that he was sad to be leaving the BBC but that he and the channel controller, Lorraine Heggessey, could not agree on a suitable slot for his show following the return of Premiership football highlights to the BBC One Saturday evening schedule. The ITV version of the programme, produced by Granada, debuted in September 2004, with an identical set, theme tune and format to the BBC edition. Its audience was around 6m viewers.
The most recent Parkinson run on the BBC (1998–2004) was one of the few recent British TV programmes that was not made in widescreen. However, his ITV show was recorded in the format with very tight close-ups.
Initially Bill Cotton was keen on a format more akin to the USA's Ed Sullivan Show, featuring entertainment and chat. However, Parkinson and his producer, Richard Drewett (who had worked on Late Night Line-Up), envisioned a combination of guests whose celebrity had been achieved in different fields. Their plan was that the final section of each show would become a conversation rather than a formal interview. The pair wanted to move the style as far as possible from the American prototype, even down to the removal of the host's desk, which Parkinson viewed as the "biggest obstacle to a proper interview". At first, Cotton was against this but Drewett convinced him otherwise.
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