Charlie Rose with Albina du Boisrouvray; Peter Jackson, Viggo Mortensen & Elijah Wood

Countess Albina du Boisrouvray, founder and president of the Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud discusses the orphans of the AIDS epidemic. Then, an interview with director Peter Jackson and actors Viggo Mortensen and Elijah Wood about the second installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers.

Charlie Rose - he's no Michael Parkinson!

Firstly let me nail my colours to the mast - I'd never seen Charlie Rose before, though I had heard of him. (He's not big this side of the Atlantic). I bought the Interview DVD because I AM a big fan of all three of the interviewees (and incidentally, of the Lord of the Rings - both Tolkien's original work and Jackson's amazing movie portrayal of them).

To be honest, even if Charlie Rose's show was shown on Irish or English TV, I wouldn't rush to view it unless he had very interesting people on. I found his style to be unimpressive and not conducive to getting the best out of his subjects. He also seemed to have some difficulty grasping the points they were actually trying to make. Fortunately, this didn't matter too much when it came to Peter Jackson, who is a born communicator and has no problem expressing himself.
Rose's shortcomings as a chat-show host were more obvious in his handling of the quieter-spoken and rather shy Viggo Mortensen. Because Rose obviously didn't like much of what Viggo was saying, he seemed to be deliberately misinterpreting him, repeatedly looking for clarification as if the man was speaking a different language.
Elijah Wood, who is also quite shy and obviously reticent when it comes to speaking his own words rather than those of a script-writer, fared even worse, as Charlie Rose failed to draw him out in depth on any of his opinions. To be honest, the whole thing was a little like a souffle, light & fluffy and leaving only a hint of taste on the tongue and a wish for something more substantial.

Sorry, Charlie, I'll stick to our own European chat-show hosts such as Michael Parkinson, Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton, who really know how to get their guests to open up and then, when they are rolling along, know how to shut up and let the guest carry on, rather than wanting to be the stars of the show themselves. Perhaps I'm being unfair, perhaps American audiences prefer to hear the Host doing most of the talking, but personally I tune in to chat shows to listen to the guests, not the guy in the suit.
January 10, 2007

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