The Experiment

[frameofmind6]

Just got around to watching Craig Ferguson's "late-night experiment" -- the show he did on Feb. 23 where he decided to try out an older version of the late-night format, with no audience, no monologues, just two people sitting in chairs having a conversation (in this case, it was him and Stephen Fry). I gotta say, I thought it was fantastic. Which came as a little bit of a surprise, because I thought I would miss the audience if only because of sheer habit, and also because the actual interviews (as opposed to the monologues) are usually the part of these late-night talk shows that I can sort of take or leave. But the interesting thing is that without all the showy junk, and the centrifuge-like rotation of guests, and the pressure to get a laugh every five seconds, the conversation itself really got interesting -- I could have listened to them for another hour or two at least. They were free to be funny (which they were) in a more genuine way while actually talking about things, rather than just making jokes and trying to squeeze in the vital information about the movie/book/disposable wet-wipe the interviewee is there to push. This should definitely happen more often. I mean, I know there are people who have shows with a similar format (Larry King, for instance), but they're always a little more on the news side of the fence -- like "news lite" instead of "talk-show heavy," I guess. Craig has the unique qualifications of being incredibly funny and also actually interesting and clever -- there's no way in the world that someone like Jay Leno, for instance, could pull this off. Jon Stewart could do it (considering that the whole "extended interview posted online" think has become a semi-regular occurrence on The Daily Show, I have no doubt that he could carry a full-length one-on-one conversation like this), but I don't know of anyone else in late-night who could. Of course, there would also be the difficulty of finding equally interesting and clever guests to interview five times a week (can't really put a Britney Spears in this sort of hot seat. That would be pure agony...), but maybe he could do it as sort of a semi-regular event.

This interview totally made me fall in love with Stephen Fry too, I have to say. I mean, I've seen him various places, but mostly in cameos and things, and my knowledge about who he is and what he's done is vague. He's sort of one of those people I've always meant to find out more about, but I've never actually gotten around to it -- but now I think he's awesome. Definitely going to have to put A Bit of Fry and Laurie (the sketch show he did with Hugh Laurie back in their early career together) at the top of my Netflix queue. Kinda want to read his autobiography too...

Comments

[frameofmind6.livejournal.com]

OMG, totally want to see that one -- my mom loves the P.G. Wodehouse books, so maybe I'll talk her into watching it with me once I move back home. But yeah, he's pretty awesome -- I'm looking forward to hunting down all the things he's done, as I seem to do with most every interesting person I come across... ;)