Roger Waters - interviewed by Stephen Sackur

ChrisMusic

ddlooping

Thanks Chris, I enjoyed that.

Lixarto

Yep - good interview.

bertie

was he married to Virginia ?

Grunfeld

Cheers.  Watched that last night.  I know RW said that he enjoyed the interview but I didn't really like that interviewer bloke.  I got the feeling that by being confrontational in places he was closing RW down; prickly responses.  I kept wondering if Waters might have opened up more if the interviewer had not been so in his face.  Dunno.

Cirrus

I agree, it was a pretty typical BBC way of being "probing". At one point Roger said something that made complete sense to me and the next question was an attempt to make it sound like he'd contradicted himself or was lying.

ChrisMusic

Hey guys, I thought you might enjoy this.

This interview, and the Tony Iommi one, are part of the HARDtalk strand on the BBC news channel.

They are geared to be hard hitting interviews, with difficult questions, and putting the interviewee on the spot, and sometimes making them very uncomfortable too.

This program is usually confronting politicians, environmental issues etc, so the 'take no prisoners' style is quite refreshing, and does often get far beyond the usual day to day stuff.

I do get the feeling, that despite a couple of awkward moments, Steven Sackur had a genuine respect and liking for Roger.

He (Steven) is great with tough political types, well worth seeing him in action.

And Roger certainly would have known what he was letting himself in for, before he agreed to do the show.

All in all I enjoyed the program, and got some good insights into the man, and some historical myths too.

Grunfeld

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it Chris.  And that makes sense now you've said that the interviewer is usually used to dealing with politicians -- those slimy lying bastards are skilled in the techniques of rhetoric and debate, I don't even think they're worth talking to or listening to, but hard interviewing is probably the only thing that works.

(Earlier I was thinking more along the lines of the way Dr Anthony Clare used to interview people... had a way of relaxing people and getting them to give deep and thoughtful replies.  That sort of thing.)

littlegreenman

Enjoyed that

Cirrus

Have a wow!

midiglitch

Just bought 'amused to death'. Waters is long overdue my attention as I have been told by a number of friends. Looking forward to listening to this

Lixarto

"Amused To Death" is cruelly overlooked if you ask me.

It also has Jeff Beck being better than Dave.

ChrisMusic

@Grunfeld, no worries.  I thought it worth putting the editing profile of HardTalk across, as I found some of it a bit pointless and abrasive too.

I totally agree that a softer and empathetic approach would deliver a much better and more in depth and insightful interview in most cases, the hard line approach tends to stultify the rhetoric.

But you should see some of the political types squirm, that really does show when this style of interview pays off.

I think the one I posted on Tony Iommi was a little softer  >here<, however I have to say I did enjoy the Roger Waters interview too.