Voices: RIP Parky, TV’s most underrated actor (no, really!)

Every year on Halloween I do three things: I make my dentist rich, I accidentally stab myself in the eye with a cotton swap while I’m applying vampire make-up, and I watch the 1992 made-for-television movie Ghostwatch. That last one is probably the most important. It brings me more joy than a thousand gummy worms and glow-in-the-dark pointy teeth ever could.

You can imagine my devastation then, when I heard that the star of one of my all-time favourite movies, Michael Parkinson, passed away last night at the age of 88 after a brief illness.

If you aren’t familiar with Ghostwatch, that might come as something of a surprise. “Michael Parkinson? The chat show host? He doesn’t act! He might spar with Muhammed Ali and get into feuds with Meg Ryan, but he’s no actor!”

You’d be wrong. Not only did Parky act, but he was really good at it. Ghostwatch was a 90-minute television special that followed popular BBC television personalities as they investigated a supposedly haunted council house in London (think Most Haunted before Most Haunted existed). Blue Peter’s Sarah Greene interviews the house’s residents, Red Dwarf star Craig Charles provides colour commentary – and Parky himself presides over the proceedings from a BBC studio.

While the special was presented to viewers in the 90s as if it were a real broadcast, the entire thing was in fact carefully scripted, and as the night wears on the supernatural events gradually ramp up. You wouldn’t think a show where Michael Parkinson takes phone calls from the public could be scarier than most horror movies, but it works – and that’s largely down to Parkinson himself.

The entire conceit of the show only triumphs because Michael Parkinson is so convincing as… well, as himself. Because the show hinges on selling the idea that what you’re seeing is real, having Parkinson in that chair makes you believe without question. He was – and likely always will be – shorthand for class, integrity and public trust in British broadcasting. His presence is enough to lull you into a false sense of security, which makes the gradual introduction of scares in the show’s second act ten times more effective than they otherwise would have been.

He’s also a really good actor! This is probably going to sound more sarcastic than I mean it to, but Michael Parkinson as Michael Parkinson really is the role of a lifetime! He has a very clear awareness of his own appeal, and he manages to tap into that without every verging on parody. Even in the show’s closing moments, in which Parkinson himself is possessed by the spirit haunting Foxhill Drive, it never feels hokey. He’s just that good.

He’s so good that I looked up his IMDB credits while writing this, assuming that he must have had some background as a television actor. Surprisingly, he only appeared in 11 projects, and he plays himself in all of them (with the exception of a Victoria Wood special, in which he hilariously plays a character called “Joe Buggersthorpe”). We were robbed of Parkinson’s Lear.

It makes sense. Parkinson was a mainstay of British television for decades because of his natural charisma, his unwavering professionalism, and perhaps, most importantly, his understanding of what made his celebrity guests tick. It didn’t matter if he was interviewing Victoria Beckham or Billy Connolly, he knew how to get the most out of a guest (how else do you explain Posh Spice telling him that her nickname for Beckham was “golden b****”? You couldn’t waterboard that information out of me).

That level of understanding and empathy is the mark of a great performer – and above all else, that’s exactly what Michael Parkinson was. In his passing, our television screens have lost one of the best to ever do it. I know it isn’t Halloween, but I think I know what I’ll be watching tonight.