Great to have a day off, though predictably my brain decided to turn off and go into a vegetative state, so I didn't get much done. But I think that's probably fair enough.
I had to do a couple of promotional interviews at lunchtime. At least they were on the phone, so I could still be in my dressing gown. The first one was fine and even ran over by 15 minutes. The journalist seemed to know a little bit about me and asked some interesting questions. I don't hugely enjoy doing these things and think they are of limited usefulness, but they can't hurt. Well not unless something goes spectacularly wrong.
Which brings us to the second interview, with a local newspaper in Lincoln. The woman seemed friendly enough, though commenting that the previous interview had gone long - was she annoyed at being kept waiting? I didn't register that at the time - in any case it had given her an extra 15 minutes to become familiar with me and my work. I certainly don't expect these journalists to know who I am and most of them (on the local papers especially) don't. I do expect them to have bothered to find out a little bit about me first though. It doesn't take much. They get a press release and they only have to read my wikipedia entry to get a solid over view. I am not a precious diva and am happy to ignore the little giveaway slips that prove they hadn't heard of me until an hour ago and I usually cheerfully answer the same questions over and over again without criticising anyone for the paucity of their imagination. They are doing a job. I am doing a job. Neither of us particularly want to be here. Let's get through this together.
This interview started a little stickily as she asked, "What are the main differences between being a comedian and being a headmaster?" It was an unusual question at least, though I assumed that she had realised I had done a show about my dad being my headmaster and was wondering how our jobs differed. I had a crack at answering it like that anyway, but I could tell from the awkward atmosphere on the other end of the phone that something was awry. The journalist admitted that she had misunderstood the opening of the press release.
That begins, "Jesus Christ â Son of God! Saviour of mankind! Superstar!
Richard Herring â Son of Keith, a retired headmaster! Once saved a spider that had become trapped in his bath, only crushing three of its legs in the process! Hosted 10 episodes of a chatshow about poker on a satellite channel which subsequently closed down."
Now to be generous, it might be possible to misinterpret the comma after Keith, but only if you weren't really paying attention. It was almost as if this woman hadn't prepared a single question, had scanned the press release quickly and had said the first thing that popped into her head. Because if she had genuinely thought that I was a retired headmaster and had prepared, you'd think she's want to know why I had given up a proper job, that I was clearly doing well at and taken on such a massive career change. Or what had prompted me to retire in my 40s.
It was a silly slip, though one that uncharacteristically for a journalist she admitted to (she could easily have pretended that she had meant the query in the way I had answered it). She was maybe a bit nervous. Maybe she was new to the job (though I would say that that was more of an argument for doing at least a quarter of an hour of research). I laughed it off and we carried on.
A few minutes later she stated words to the effect of "Now you came to public attention with the show where you grew a Hitler Moustache. Before that no one really knew who you were..." At least she hadn't assumed I was once the fascist dictator of Nazi Germany. She had managed to write-off the first twenty years of my career in one confident statement. It made me laugh rather than angry, but was not a great interviewing technique (unless she was much subtler than I imagined and was trying to rile me to get some good copy out of me- or maybe this was an hilarious prank call from a Channel 4 comedy show). I did make an attempt to point out that I had done some stuff before that show, but I didn't make a big thing about it.
We got on to talking about the show and whether it was controversial. Perhaps trying to nip any sensationalism in the bud I attempted to explain that the show had been enjoyed by many Christians and wasn't as offensive as it might first appear. "But do you think sensitive people might want to avoid coming?" she asked. I replied that that was really up to the individual to decide. After all everyone should have an idea of how sensitive they are and if the idea of a comedy show about Jesus is something that makes them feel uncomfortable then they should be able to make their own decision. It is fairly clear from the title and poster image that the show is going to have an element of scurrilous humour, so I reasoned that it was not necessary for the paper to warn people of a nervous disposition not to come. Perhaps I was a little passionate in my defence of the show, or maybe she was looking for controversy, but she asked me if I had had a lot of accusations of being offensive because I seemed defensive. I told her that there had been very little, but that a few papers had tried to make the show seem more inflammatory than it was and published the views of more extreme people who I didn't think were representative of most Christians and most (or all) of whom hadn't seen the show. She said she felt it was her job to let her readers know what kind of show it would be, but I wanted to ensure that she wouldn't create controversy where there was none and reiterated that it wasn't really necessary for her to warn sensitive people about it, because it was highly unlikely that a person sensitive to these issues would book a ticket. The safety valve is there in the title and the poster. But it's a show that some Christians would probably enjoy, if not unconditionally. I told her that I thought she had asked a bit of a dumb question. But things were a little tense and heated and she was maybe a little sensitive herself and said that she didn't know where to go from there and maybe we should wrap up in case she asked another dumb question.
Perhaps having been grilled by more hard bitten journalists I had been a little harsh on her, but I explained that that didn't mean we had to curtail the interview and that if she was asking provocative questions I had a right to answer them honestly. She steadied herself and asked me something along the lines of, "What review would you ideally like this show to get?" Now this one, I felt in my agitated state was a really pointless, if not dumb, question. I sarcastically said, "This was the greatest comedy show of all time,' but I realised that I was too wound up to answer her less silly questions sensibly and it was probably best to end it here. So I made my excuses and left.
It will be interesting to see how she writes up this interview (if she does), because from her point of view I must have seen short tempered and rude, and yet I doubt she would mention her own slip ups in the article. I have remained polite in the face of journalistic idiocy, sarcasm and disinterest in the past and don't think I have ever had to curtail an interview in this way, or get as wound up. But I think this was incompetence and lack of preparation on her point, rather than any agenda. I am sure she is a lovely woman and I felt bad for probably having upset her. But then again she had shown a certain element of discourtesy by failing to prepare even a little bit.
I wished I had recorded the whole thing for a DVD extra. As with most of my arguments (for example the one in Brighton recently) I feel that I am not blameless in the way that things turned out and indeed I think listening back to the interview would be an interesting exercise in seeing me getting wound up. Maybe I should tape these calls in future (it would also be a useful thing to have in case the article did make me out to be up myself and rude without any attempt to explain why).
It's not a case of "Don't you know who I am?" More of "You're interviewing me, so don't you think you should know who I am?"
