The disarming of Nixon will always be considered his defining moment but this Margaret Thatcher interview is equally revealing…
As the career retrospectives started to appear across news sites following David Frost’s death, I was quick to peruse the accompanying video clips, as if I were a magpie seeking a prize titbit with which to line my nest, a nest within which my final opinion of the journalist and TV presenter could begin to gestate.
For that’s the aim of the ‘career spanning’ article, is it not? Offer the reader — someone who may have no preconceived idea of the merits of such an individual — an easily digestible morsel of generalisation, an insubstantial, introductory aperitif, suitable for the unrefined pallet of even the most fledgling chick?
I would usually baulk at this ‘Buzz Feed’ approach, especially when the subject’s work spans decades, but, incredibly, exceptionally, one of the clips I happened upon managed to encapsulate precisely the qualities of the man, and in little over ten minutes.
Yet, more than that, it displayed exactly how Frost’s skills as an interviewer could unveil a defining characteristic in his interviewee as well, coaxing out from the cracked egg shell, with a gentle tap, the yolk of his subject’s soul, bared for all to see.
The clip is taken from an 1985 interview with the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It concerns a pivotal point in the Falklands War, a conflict in which Thatcher had been widely criticised for attacking and sinking the Belgrano, an Argentine vessel which was later discovered to be posing no immediate threat, sailing, as it was, away from the British fleet.
Watch how Frost remains resolute in the face of the Prime Minister’s deflection, particularly regarding a possible cover up, and at all times is calm, charismatic and polite. At no point does he feel the need to become aggressive in his questioning and despite Thatcher’s best efforts to undermine him, she is the one left with egg on her face.
Remarkably, it all serves to utterly expose the cold-hearted, bludgeoning morality that would come to define Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister.
If you want David Frost — or Margaret Thatcher — in a nutshell, then look no further. Here is the explanation for the high regard in which he was held and why her legacy remains that of the most divisive British leader in living memory. Just a few moments TV defines them both. It is compelling viewing…
As the career retrospectives started to appear across news sites following David Frost’s death, I was quick to peruse the accompanying video clips, as if I were a magpie seeking a prize titbit with which to line my nest, a nest within which my final opinion of the journalist and TV presenter could begin to gestate.
For that’s the aim of the ‘career spanning’ article, is it not? Offer the reader — someone who may have no preconceived idea of the merits of such an individual — an easily digestible morsel of generalisation, an insubstantial, introductory aperitif, suitable for the unrefined pallet of even the most fledgling chick?
I would usually baulk at this ‘Buzz Feed’ approach, especially when the subject’s work spans decades, but, incredibly, exceptionally, one of the clips I happened upon managed to encapsulate precisely the qualities of the man, and in little over ten minutes.
Yet, more than that, it displayed exactly how Frost’s skills as an interviewer could unveil a defining characteristic in his interviewee as well, coaxing out from the cracked egg shell, with a gentle tap, the yolk of his subject’s soul, bared for all to see.
The clip is taken from an 1985 interview with the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It concerns a pivotal point in the Falklands War, a conflict in which Thatcher had been widely criticised for attacking and sinking the Belgrano, an Argentine vessel which was later discovered to be posing no immediate threat, sailing, as it was, away from the British fleet.
Watch how Frost remains resolute in the face of the Prime Minister’s deflection, particularly regarding a possible cover up, and at all times is calm, charismatic and polite. At no point does he feel the need to become aggressive in his questioning and despite Thatcher’s best efforts to undermine him, she is the one left with egg on her face.
Remarkably, it all serves to utterly expose the cold-hearted, bludgeoning morality that would come to define Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister.
If you want David Frost — or Margaret Thatcher — in a nutshell, then look no further. Here is the explanation for the high regard in which he was held and why her legacy remains that of the most divisive British leader in living memory. Just a few moments TV defines them both. It is compelling viewing…
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