Denton's a star

This column first appeared in the Age on October 23, 2004

He's Parkinson without the swarm and charm. In fact Andrew Denton's the guy that managed to get behind that charm and get Parky to confess that, 'I didn't like myself at all. I had a very low self regard.'

Andrew Denton is Australia's finest interviewer. And of course, one of the keys to being a great interviewer is picking good guests, both of which we can expect on Monday night (9.30 p.m, ABC) in Enough Rope's final episode for this year: a rare interviewe with writer Tim Winton and a chat with adventurer/mountaineer, Aron Ralston who's perhaps better known as 'the guy who hacked off his own arm with a blunt pen knife'. There is more to Ralston than meets the eye, so, as in the best of the other shows, the interview is more than we could have hoped for even if it makes for excruciating viewing simply because what he has gone through is extreme to the point of unimaginable. But that is what Denton manages to do, take you to places you'd never imagined being, having conversations you'd never imagined having.

This year Denton got Dave Hughes talking about this sexual problems; he got Jimmy Barnes talking about his addictions; he asked Jeff Kennett if, 'there was anything about you that's relevant, Jeff?'; asked the parents of missing teenagers how they manage to continue their lives; got Luke 'the Dice Man' Rhinehart, to admit he was getting a bit too old to keep rolling the dice; flirted with people of all ages and genders, (flirting being an essential interviewing tool according to Parky); glazed over with boredom when the incredibly interesting Irshad Manji failed to diverge from her polished shtick; asked Dawn Fraser how it was to be responsible for her mother's death; gave us a pretty good idea of how scary it is in the United States right now by interviewing people like Steve Earles and K.D Lang; got Phillip Noyce to tell his side of a story which involved Sharon Stone, a massage and a rumored erection; he joked with a homeless woman, Eleanor, that she was a 'slightly up herself homeless woman' before Peachie, a second homeless woman talked about getting burnt with cigars, shot, and 'set on fire a few times' and he talked about brains with Dr Susan Greenfield. In perhaps his biggest challenge of all he managed not to fall of his chair at the sheer erudition and beauty of writer and activist Arundhati Roy last week - though he did look very swoony when he was interviewing Antonio Banderas a while ago (didn't we all).

Denton's particularly good at talking to people about their partnerships - as we saw in his moving and funny interview with Glenn and Jane McGrath earlier in the year. Relationships are also the most interesting aspect of the new two-part Series, Looking For Victoria (Saturday, ABC, 7.30Pm), in which actress Prunella Scales sets out to discover the truth about Queen Victoria. It's an odd show, and at first I'd have said you need to be a real Royal junkie to enjoy it, but the more we learn more about Victoria's reationship with Albert the more broadly the show resonates - if only I could shake the images left by all those English historians who hint, not so subtly, that Victoria and Albert were real goers. And while I'm on the subject of sex could I just suggest that if The Cooks (Channel 10, 9.30 p.m., Monday) stop bonking for long enough, the show might end up being much, much better than it currently is.

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