Review of Piers Morgan's first performance as the new Larry King
How did Piers Morgan's performance go down on the Larry King slot on CNN? We asked Boston-based journalist Noel Young to review his Oprah Winfrey interview.
At first there were so many name drops for her new Oprah Winfrey Network, that you had to pinch yourself to remember that this was the Piers Morgan show. Piers was affable, likeable, and jocular - but we could have done with a bit more of the Fleet Street edginess.
The two fell over themselves to compliment each other. Morgan endlessly praised Oprah, called her “the American queen’’ and said she would’ve been a “fantastic mother’’ and a great therapist. Oprah told him repeatedly “You’re good’’.
The American press were, however, prepared to let Piers off the hook.
The NY Daily News pointed out that after 24 and a half years of her own TV show, Oprah "doesn't have a lot of 'I didn't know that' moments left.
"Oprah knows all the graceful ways not to talk about what she doesn't want to talk about. The gay stuff? She addressed that with Barbara Walters, she said, so don't even think of asking her about it. Morgan didn't."
The Boston Globe said Piers was by turns charming, vain, well informed, and fawning — but mostly just fawning.
The paper conceded that Piers did get Oprah to talk "with relative candour" about her unconventional relationship with Stedman Graham and her suicidal thoughts when she was pregnant at 14.
The New York Post thought that was the moment the show caught fire . The baby died in hospital and Oprah said of losing it: "I felt nothing but relief." The post’s woman TV critic said, “I'd never heard a woman say that before. Ever.”
Everyone in our viewing circle thought that Oprah was a big "get" for that first interview - and the price to be paid was was that it was soft.
Tonight we are hoping for better things with shock jock Howard Stern and later in the week Ricky Gervais, who pissed off Americans with his performance compering the Golden Globes