Dean on Dean — ‘shattered’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33928, 22 August 1975, Page 4

Dean on Dean — ‘shattered’

< By

KEN COATES)

Michael Dean might not be every New Zea- | lander’s idea of the Kiwi !male, but he is perceptive and frank about his I decidedly patchy start with TVI. “I was certainly culpable.” he said. Sitting at his desk high in the Avalon tower block of TVI, the former BBC interviewer of note mused over the nightmare of every television performer — adverse public criticism of his performance.

“Television One did take some unfair stick over my casting,” he said. “I had no idea what would work in New Zealand and when we were discussing the Dean-Edwards Show someone suggested having, an audience.

“Well I suppose every interviewer at some time has the ambition to be like David Frost. 1 thought the amphitheatre idea would be good and although I had never worked in front of an audience before, I went along with it.” The result, said Dean, was disastrous.

“The electricity of the situation stunned me.

“Brian Edwards gets more nervous than I do before a show, but an audience enlarges him and he gets more released. “I had not realised how protected I had been always working in a small studio. The audience only made me nervous and destroyed the! kind of rapport 1 was trying to build up. “1 would ask a seripus question during the interview and some-one in the audience would laugh — that kind of thing absolutely shattered me.” WHAT AUDIENCE?

i Michael said he felt more lat ease now over his show. ! But he seems rather unisure of who his late-night Saturday audience consists of. “In England, it was mostly people of liberal, middle-class background sit- ' ting around sipping their claret and nodding, ‘Quite so, quite so,’’ he recalled. “But 1 suppose it covers the spectrum here. 1 originally thought of a kind of moral re-armament role in keeping all the engaged couples out of bed,” he said. . Michael Dean admits to receiving telephone calls from women viewers “including a strange caller who pretended to be Brian Ed- ! wards’ wife and invited my I wife and I to dinner.” There | are also giggling reactions in ' the street which annoy him. I Television One’s thinking

in programming both ’ Edwards and Dean late on Saturday has rested on the opportunity this gives for flexibility and testing boundaries.

But Michael Dean privately considers Brian Edwards is right for the Saturday night slot, while his show would be better on Sundays.

ALL BLACK I “1 like the idea of using television to look at itself,” Dean added. Bill Munro, controller of programmes, was happy with the idea, he said, and there was no reason why TVI should not look at TV2 !as well. Next time Dean will interview the All Black. Bryan Williams. Dean said there were few New Zealanders who were really articulate, even allowing for the poetry in motion of a star Rugbv player.

It was difficult to find a celebrity other than a politician or an All Black, so the answer might be to talk to New Zealanders in their own homes.

“Dean on Saturday” would be using film to exploit this area, he added. “I am sure there are New Zealanders in say, Gore and Stewart Island who are capable of saying something interesting.” Dean said he suspected the education system had something to do with the way in which so many Kiwis “talk with their mouths half closed and seem to have difficulty expressing themselves.” But he did not have this experience with a party of school-girls who visited Avalon. “They gave me the toughest grilling I have ever had,” he said. “And I found out it was due to an outstanding teacher.”