Analysing Interview Techniques

The Jonathan Ross show

Jonathan Ross interviews Russell Howard

ITV, 4th May 2013 

The Jonathan Ross show is a British talk show presented by Jonathan Ross, on his shows he interviews celebrities whereby they are able to talk about their personal lives, work and also able to promote them selves.

The main purpose of this interview was to inform the audience of the different events and shows Russell howard does, whilst also enhancing the audiences understanding of the type of things Russell Howard does as there may be people who don't actually know who he is or what his job role is. Russell was asked by the interviewer to talk about his upcoming tours, his show, where he gets his inspiration for shows from and also a slight inside into his personal life, this then gave the opportunity for him to promote and advertise him self to a larger audience who might not have seen him else where.

Just before the interview Russell Howard is given an enthusiastic and large welcome onto the stage from Jonathan Ross and the audience, from this we are instantly given the feeling that this is going to be a comfortable and friendly interview, there is not much of an introduction as to who Russell Howard is as he is already quite a well known comedian, Jonathan gets straight into the interview as soon as they have sat down with the opening sentence "Alright Russell your back on tour now? you haven't done a live tour for how many years now?", the use of this very open and suggestive question gives Russell the chance to talk within this topic and also branch out and give other information that that the interviewer may not mention, which creates an easy beginning and flow to the conversation/interview.
You can tell both the interviewer and interviewee are comfortable in conversation by their body language as Russell is given a sofa to sit on, where at he is sat back comfortable and as he becomes more and more interested and engaged in the conversation he begins to make more movement, also leaning closer to the interviewer as he becomes more excited about the topics. Jonathan is able to maintain this light-hearted atmosphere as he is sat at his desk with his body turned to face Russell directly whilst he is talking, to ensure Russell knows he is listening to what he has to say, Jonathan often keeps his questions short and open with enables Russell to have more time to talk and expand on these questions.

Jonathan also had a very well structured list of questions as each of Russell's answers were able to relate or feed into Jonathan's next question therefore they were able to cover all the relevant topics about Russell and his career, so the audience also got enough information on what Russell is doing on upcoming dates.