Michael Parkinson’s favourite Aussies, from Dame Edna to Thorpe

Pick of the day: ‘Parky’s Favourite Australians’, 7.30pm, Ten.

Michael Parkinson presents Parky’s Favourite Australians on network TEN (High res)

Pick of the day: Parky’s Favourite Australians, 7.30pm, Ten.

In this week’s episode of The Trip to Italy (Friday, 10pm, ABC), comedian Rob Brydon does a side-splitting impersonation of Michael Parkinson, pretending to interview his lunch companion, Steve Coogan.

“Where do you stand on Michael Buble?” asks Brydon, as Parkinson. “His windpipe?” says Coogan. In a perfect Yorkshire accent, Brydon continues his questioning but interrupts every one of Coogan’s answers, before pretending to throw to a performance by Buble.

While a tad unfair to the great man, it makes me nostalgic for Parkinson, 80, who was so long a fixture on our television screens and a touchstone for talk shows. Parkinson knew what set his show apart. “The graveyard is full of people who tried talk shows and didn’t make it, mainly because they weren’t journalists,” he says.

In Parky’s Favourite Australians, he introduces interviews with subjects from this country, which he often describes as his second home.

Many would be familiar with his numerous interviews over the years with Dame Edna Everage, appearances that Barry Humphries credits with cementing his appeal in Britain. The show includes a famously combative interview with Kerry Packer during the World Series Cricket controversy. And also last year’s appearance by Ian Thorpe, during which the former swimmer announced he was gay.

Other interview subjects include Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Shane Warne, Kylie Minogue, Hugh Jackman, Paul Hogan, Clive James, Robert Helpmann, Bob Hawke and Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

Parkinson wrote some years ago: “In my television paradise, there would be no more property programs, no more police chasing yobbos in cars. And, please God, no more so-called documentary shows with titles like … My Big Fat Head and The Fastest Man on No Legs.” In my TV paradise, he would do his talk show forever; but it’s great to welcome him back to our screens even just for one night.