Keith Allen: 'Channel 4 nearly didn't air my Nick Griffin interview'
Published Mar 5 2012, 19:43 GMT | By Paul Millar
Keith Allen has alleged that Channel 4 was apprehensive over his interview with Nick Griffin finally airing tonight.The 58-year-old father of singer Lily Allen claimed that the programme only went ahead after producer Victor Lewis-Smith called Channel 4's chief executive David Abraham "a spineless c**t".
© PA Images / Zak Hussein
© PA Images / Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Writing in The Independent, the actor recalled: "Having recorded and edited the Nick Griffin documentary, I discovered to my chagrin that the problems were only half over.
"Channel 4, which had been enthusiastic about the idea of me interviewing Griffin, was discomfited by the reality and repeatedly asked for changes and additional lines of didactic narration.
"When one commissioning editor completely misunderstood a sequence about Muslim women in which Griffin was unexpectedly defending them as victims of male violence, she gave such a knee-jerk reaction that I assumed she must have trained with Galvani.
"Eventually, after much patient explanation, Channel 4 said it was pleased with the documentary, but it then sat on a shelf as summer turned to autumn and then to winter.
"Hence Victor's outburst of a month ago, as a result of which the programme will finally grace - or disgrace - your screen tonight."
Keith Meets... Nick Griffin airs tonight (Monday) at 11.05pm on Channel 4.
Watch an excerpt from Keith Meets... below:
Why have that ASS Keith Allen doing it he isn't exactly Jeremy Paxman is he.
October 19th 2012 at 10:04pm(+1 like)
Well said Tom.
As I understand Nick Griffin, He is standing up for the protection, the conservation and the restoration of His and My/Our Homeland and adopted and ethics, moral values and self preservation as a Nation, without foreigners, many of whom wouldn't be on this Planet if our war and service heroes, past and present, hadn't stood up for them, laying down their lives to save the families of the scummy, thieving scroungers. Where are all the Syrians that live in Great Britain. Are they going back to help fight for THEIR country and families, NO THEY AINT. They are expecting our brave soldiers t do their bidding. SENSORED~SENSORED~SENSORED.
If Nick Griffin is racist then he doesn't get my vote. To be the voice of British interest then it will be a large X in the box.
March 8th 2012 at 1:09am
Good call Shakeela, although laughing @ embarrassing, cringeworthy, ****~licking antics by such a hypocritical, pre~pubesent nob who had the opportunity, was watched and listened to by a MMMASSIVE audience and had the perfect platform to get HiS and other's Humanitarian points across instead of plugging HiS oWN eGo, CRAP MuSiCK (not lillie's by the way) and FurKin lack of any comedic value wotsofr. If Hee wants to be a Political Interviewer, if Hee wants to be a Comedian, if Hee wants to be a Musician, if Hee wants to be a GREAT VOICE FOR THE HUMANITARIAN EFFORT Hee SHOULD study the topics and not just have an opinion based on left wing propaganda and CRAP Journalists and journalismmmm. I reakon he wouldn't know that Nick Griffin and the BNP existed if his daughter hadn't written THAT song.
Good call Shakeela, although laughing @ embarrassing, cringeworthy, ****~licking antics by such a hypocritical, pre~pubesent nob who had the opportunity, was watched and listened to by a MMMASSIVE audience and had the perfect platform to get HiS and other's Humanitarian points across instead of plugging HiS oWN eGo, CRAP MuSiCK (not lillie's by the way) and FurKin lack of any comedic value wotsofr. If Hee wants to be a Political Interviewer, if Hee wants to be a Comedian, if Hee wants to be a Musician, if Hee wants to be a GREAT VOICE FOR THE HUMANITARIAN EFFORT Hee SHOULD study the topics and not just have an opinion based on left wing propaganda and CRAP Journalists and journalismmmm. I reakon he wouldn't know that Nick Griffin and the BNP existed if his daughter hadn't written THAT song.
He may have made you laugh, not everyone else, so you should have written keith allen never fails to make me laugh.
You would've laughed even more if keith allen was replaced by Keith Harris & Orville. I'm sure that The Little Green Duck, that wears a nappy would have asked questions and presented himself in a more mature way, even if he had pissed himself.
March 8th 2012 at 12:50am
"Nearly."
Where's the news?
March 6th 2012 at 3:44pm
Mrstimmy in the Digital Spy Forum's made the best comment about this rubbish show:
What an awful programme.
To be fair I actually thought the first interview started ok, with Allen quite calm and just talking as if he would to another politician, and allowing Griffin the opportunity to just talk back to him. All too often with conrtoversial interviews the interviewer (or presenter) is incredibly hostile and makes disgusting faces which really imo negates the entire interview because it's almost like cheap posturing instead of proper discussion or debate.
However, the programme soon got ridiculous (lets not even mention the promotion of his attention seeking daughter and her annoying music less than two minutes in) Instead of engaging with Griffins points, he restorted to pulling faces and pretending not to have heard about the fairly big news story surrounding Asian gangs targetting young white girls. Yes, we do have problems with white paedophiles, but that doesn't mean because of that we should ignore or not talk about the problem of Asian gangs. He then made sweeping statements about how morally superior he is as he see's people as people...yes so do I, but that's not to say I'm not hugely concerned about over population and high levels of immigration. And added silly voiceovers to make his points rather than discussing them with the person he was interviewing! How is that an interview? Make your points to Griffin's face and discuss the issue properly, not hiding in a studio adding your points in after.
Also, the bit with the disabled people. WTF? Parading them like some kind of freak show and making out they were doing Nick Griffin a favour, I mean, seriously! And the queer comments? I'm not offended at all by things like that really, I hear them on a day to day basis in the real world. But he was trying to show Griffin to be intolerant of others, whilst making queer jokes?
Very poor programme, which is disappointing because I actually thought it started ok. I am not a fan of Nick Griffin, but he is democratically elected as an MEP, and instead of just screaming racist it is better to engage in the same way interviewers and presenters do with other politicians.
March 6th 2012 at 1:06pm(+1 like)