Parkinson admits to chatshow mistakes

Michael Parkinson has admitted that his performance was below par in the early days of his TV chatshow.

The 73-year-old broadcaster has confessed to taking himself too seriously when he first started work on Parkinson for the BBC in 1971.

Parky told the Daily Mail: "I look at the old shows and think: 'Who thought that was any good?' The way we looked, for God's sake. Ruddy great trouser bottoms and we thought we were Jack the Lad.

"And I wasn't a particularly convincing interviewer, either. I was very stiff. I thought I was a proper journalist, you see. I was trying to behave like a proper journalist in a showbiz situation. The trick was accepting that I was part of the showbiz aspect, too. I came to say it was like interviewing while tap-dancing. But it took a while to understand that."

Parkinson defected to ITV in 2004 and continued with the programme for three years before recording his final episode. Though he has confirmed that he would have liked to film one more series, he has claimed that he was ultimately glad to leave the network.

"ITV was in trouble and still is. It was a very unhappy building to be in," he said. "I didn't want to spend the last days of a very enjoyable career in a place that was as depressed as that was."