This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
Whoever comes along to fill the shoes, there are certain shows that will always be associated with one broadcasting lion: Eamonn Andrews on This Is Your Life, Terry Wogan hosting the Radio 2’s Breakfast Show, Cilla Black on Blind Date… So Matthew Parris was under no illusions when he was asked to replace Brian Walden at the helm of Weekend World, 40 years ago this week.
“Weekend World was Brian Walden,” Parris remembers today of his predecessor. “He absolutely inhabited the programme. He was so memorable, he was almost a caricature. So when I was approached to follow him, I realised I was taking over from one person.”
In June 1986, Parris was the Conservative MP for West Derbyshire, but very ready for a change of career. “When I was approached by LWT, I asked if I was the first they’d asked. Turned out they’d asked Chris Patten and Bryan Gould, who’d both said no.
“Various opportunities for promotion had not come my way and I was offered twice the salary of an MP. It was made clear I would have to resign as an MP, but I was in a rut on the backbench, so I thought, let’s try something different.”
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Walden wasn’t the first host of the Sunday lunchtime political interview show – Peter Jay presented from 1972 to 1977 – but Parris is the first to agree his task was akin to taking over from Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford.
“It was a programme whose whole format – that of a single hour-long interview with one guest – was becoming obsolete, and was being kept going by the talent of one person. Unless they could find somebody equally singular, it wasn’t going to work. I don’t think it was entirely my fault. I wasn’t a giant like Brian Walden.”
In the two years that Parris sat in the presenter’s chair, there was one noticeable absence from his guest list – Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who, according to him, never forgave her former researcher for giving up his Parliamentary seat and causing a by-election with all its ensuing effort and expenditure.
“In her view that was unpardonable,” remembers Parris. “She never said so, but it was clear she wouldn’t come on Weekend World, which meant we’d always be without the PM.”
The discussion programme finished in 1988, but has enjoyed a recent postscript, with James Graham’s TV drama Brian and Maggie. Was Parris surprised by its revelations, including the late-night drinks shared by premier and interlocuter between TV bouts?
“That astonished me,” he admits. “Half the people I spoke to after it aired told me, ‘Everybody knew,’ while the other half thought as I did, which was, ‘Good God, how unprofessional.’”
Weekend World belongs to a bygone era – what’s the nearest equivalent now? Parris says firmly: “There isn’t one. Podcasts are conversations and they’re great, but Weekend World included a 20-minute study of what we would discuss, before the guest even appeared. It was in part educational. It was a great idea, but people don’t have the attention span now.
“What we did learn was that you can get a great deal more from someone in a friendly interview than a hostile one. You need to take time to put someone at ease, and that’s what Brian Walden did.”
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