…and they’ll hang themselves

Give them Enough Rope and they’ll hang themselves, so the saying goes.

Denton today shed some light on some of his guests and memories in hosting his ABC interview programme for the last five years. He swears he doesn’t want to be known as Australia’s Michael Parkinson.

“We do quite different shows, and when he was on the show he very readily acknowledged that,” Denton told the Sydney Morning Herald. “There’s a whole lot of areas I go into, and people I talk to, that he wouldn’t want to do.”

Some of his other musings are re-printed here:

“Probably the worst guest I’ve ever had was Goldie Hawn, who was such a grade-A pain in the butt and wouldn’t stop saying ‘Well, it’s in the book’. Eventually, we just cut the interview short and canned it. We never put it to air. If you want to do a book promotion, take out an ad. We’re not interested.

“Some people are very different off camera. The finest example of that was John Travolta, who was the most “on” person in the room I’ve ever seen. He was like [an] attractor beam. But the minute the interview was over, the attractor beam was off. He wasn’t unpleasant. He did what he needed to do and then it was over.

“Jeff Kennett was a classic case in point – absolutely fun, interesting and charming right up until the minute he walked onto the set, and then he chose to be the Jeff Kennett we’re perhaps more familiar with.

“This will be the sixth season of Enough Rope and, looking back, there are standouts for different reasons. But when we sit around in the office talking about people and stories we remember, it’s often the interviews in the audience. Way back in our second show we had a truckie on called Shane Kent, who told a story about driving his truck off the side of a cliff, and as he told that story the air went out of the room. It was an amazing moment. Long after I’ve forgotten what John Travolta told me I’ll be remembering Shane Kent.”

Denton’s first guest for 2008 is Wayne Carey.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Enough Rope with Adrew Denton returns 9:35 Monday March 31 on ABC1