27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
David Tennant: My social media row with JK Rowling
STV
****
'No subject is out of bounds. No subject is off the table. Anything might happen.'
So began no celebrity interview ever - until The Assembly came along. Based on a French show, Les rencontres du Papotin, The Assembly had a try-out on the BBC last year when neurodivergent youngsters quizzed the actor Michael Sheen as part of Autism Acceptance Week.
ITV swooped to commission and the resulting four interviews began this weekend with actors Danny Dyer and David Tennant, to be followed by the singer Jade Thirlwall and broadcaster Gary Lineker.
Dyer began in a blaze of effing and jeffing and built from there. He was asked about everything from his banking arrangements (his wife took sole control after he went off the rails) to how working class it was to send his son to private school (he was worried about knife crime).
It wasn't the 'big' questions that prompted the most revealing answers, but the small details like how much the BBC paid him for presenting The Wall (£100k!). You would not have seen that in a newspaper.
David Tennant looked only a shade less nervous when he stepped into the interviewers' den. How did it feel to be rejected by Taggart 16 times? What made him become an ally to the trans community? His response to JK Rowling taking him to task on social media?
This last question revealed the format's limitations. Tennant burbled away about Rowling being a wonderful author who created brilliant stories, but he hoped that 'we can all as a society just let people be'.
Your old interviewing fogey in the room would have followed this up by asking about the time he told Kemi Badenoch to 'shut up'. Was that an example of his 'let people be' attitude? It was a three-hour session reduced to 20 minutes, so perhaps there was a follow-up that we did not see.
There was another awkward moment when Tennant was asked about someone being 'cancelled' from Good Omens, but the person was not named. If they had been, a response would have been required. As it was, a discombobulated Tennant gave as much of an answer as he could and again we moved on.
All of which showed that you can ask whatever questions you like, but when it comes to fairness and a right to reply, rules are rules. There endeth the lecture.
Those hiccups aside, these 20-minute shows were a joy. As with Dyer, Tennant was best in the quieter, more reflective moments (the kind you only get in a longer interview: most sit-downs now average a couple of minutes, or as long as it takes to plug whatever programme/album is coming out).
The moment a child's illness turned serious ("You don't ever forget"); losing his parents; struggling with stage fright - the questions kept coming. Come the closing song, Sunshine on Leith - another nice touch - Tennant looked as though he had been through the wringer and then some.
Would he do it again? Looked like it. This viewer? Definitely.
