It was a masterstroke of TV interviewing. Diana, Princess of Wales, dressed in a black suit and white blouse, head bobbed forward and looking up. “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
Twenty years ago today, the BBC pulled off something of a royal coup, as Panorama journalist Martin Bashir spoke to one of the most famous women in the world, about her marriage, her relationship with Britain’s royalty, her depression, and her battles with bulimia.
On November 20th, 1995, Diana was still Her Royal Highness, but only just; she and Crown Prince Charles has legally separated in 1992. Her interview had been kept a total secret from Buckingham Palace, and within a month of her wounded and candid answers captivating the world, Queen Elizabeth II had written a letter to her son recommending a quick divorce.
The interview stands as a telling reminder of the power of television as a medium for interview. With the camera pointed directly at the subject, every reaction and gesture is magnified in perfect clarity to reveal the truth. Martin Bashir, who would later conduct a damning exposé of Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made his name with his delicate probing of the people’s princess.
Here is our list of the best TV interviews of all time...
10. David Frost and Richard Nixon
Three years after he’d left the White House in disgrace after the Watergate Scandal, British broadcaster David Frost secured a series of interviews with Richard Nixon, forcing the former president, who’d been pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford, to answer questions in the court of public opinion.
9. Margaret Thatcher and Diana Gould
In 1982, in the middle of the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher was held to task by an unknown schoolteacher, Diana Gould, over the sinking of the Belgrano and the loss of 323 lives. The PE teacher, a Cambridge graduate, shook the Iron Lady to the core with cool logic and a number of difficult questions.
8. Pee Flynn on The Late Late Show
Gaffe-prone Padraig Flynn, then the Irish European Commissioner, made a disastrous appearance with Gay Byrne in March, 1999. Encapsulating a generation of entitled politicians, his comments about financing three homes – and three housekeepers – in Dublin, Mayo, and Brussels became a talking point for years to come.
7. Bill Grundy and the Sex Pistols
On an episode of Today, a regional news show broadcast by Thames Television in 1976, became an international punchline when interviewing the band the Sex Pistols, who swore on live TV, ended Grundy’s career, and introduced TV audiences to punk rock.
6. Katie Couric and Sarah Palin
In the lead up to the 2008 US presidential election, Republican candidate John McCain had shaken up the system by selecting the unknown Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his VP. Despite making an excellent start to the campaign, Palin’s lustre was destroyed by a TV interview with CBS, with seasoned journalist Katie Couric exposing a politician completely out of her depth.
5. Piers Morgan and Larry Pratt
Just days after the tragic Sandyhook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, British bruiser Piers Morgan took on Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, whose recommendation to resolve school shootings is to arm teachers, leading to some very strained words.
4. Annie Murphy and Gay Byrne
An American divorcée living in Ireland, Murphy spoke to a terse Gay Byrne about her son Peter, and Peter’s father – Bishop Eamon Casey. Casey would ultimate resign from the church, a pivotal moment in the diminishing role of the Catholic Church in Irish society.
3. Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howard
A semantic onslaught that was either Paxman reminding the seasoned politician who was asking the questions and what they meant, or Paxman allegedly winding down the clock while the production team scrambled to make the show’s running time, the interview has gone down in history as a war of attrition worked out in just moments.
2. Jeffrey Dahmer speaks to Stone Phillips
One of the most notorious serial killers ever to operate in the United States, Dahmer was convicted for the murder of 16 male victims, the youngest of whom was just 14. Two years into his life sentence, Dahmer calmly recollected how he wound up where he was in an interview with NBC’s Dateline. A chilling insight into the mind of a killer.
1. Melvyn Bragg and Francis Bacon
The Irish-born artist who redefined the art scene at the end of the 20th century, talks about life, philosophy, art, and everything in between while getting increasingly drunk on a pub crawl.
