Bands on the run
How did a 'gay geek' and a bolshie schoolgirl change the face of music TV? As Simon Amstell and Miquita Oliver bow out of Popworld, Barbara Ellen salutes two presenters who lampooned everyone from Ronan Keating and Girls Aloud to The Strokes
 | Barbara Ellen The Observer, Sunday 9 April 2006 Article history |
Certain music industry bigwigs may be delighted at the news that Simon Amstell and Miquita Oliver, the presenters of Channel 4's weekend morning must-see chat-and-pop fixture Popworld, are stepping down after six years at the helm.
When we meet to talk before the Observer's photo shoot in north London, Amstell and Oliver tell me that, only recently, Journey South, Simon Cowell's band from The X Factor, firmly rebuffed an invitation to be interviewed on Popworld. 'We couldn't book Journey South,' says Amstell, shaking his head, wonderingly. Does he know whether or not Cowell approves of Popworld? 'I don't know,' he says, adding more firmly, 'but I do know that we don't approve of Simon Cowell.'
For those of you unfamiliar with Popworld, it seems fair to point out that artists and their management may feel they have very good reasons to be nervous of appearing; which of course are the very same reasons the show's fans love to watch it. At various points over the years there has been enough of what the presenters term 'interview gold' to keep celebrity fear levels running high. Everything from a po-faced Gwen Stefani refusing a gift of cheese on the red carpet at this year's Brits; Amstell interviewing Natalie 'You're too beautiful!' Imbruglia with a paper bag over his head, or, famously, Girls Aloud's Cheryl Tweedy, fresh from her court case involving an incident with a toilet attendant, being asked whether people were frightened to see her walk into the ladies.
This is not forgetting such innovations as the talking horses, Richard and Trudy (voiced by Amstell and Oliver), who conducted their beloved 'in-depth' interviews with varying degrees of success. (The Pussycat Dolls giggled as the horses whinnied through their questions; the Strokes glared balefully out from beneath 'too cool for school' fringes.) Other times it was just Amstell and Oliver sitting on sofas, 'nodding understandingly' as artists chatted away, more often than not producing something curiously revealing. Take rapper Dizzee Rascal's solemn (and unbeatable) argument concerning poetic licence in songwriting: 'The person who wrote "Baa Baa Black Sheep" might not have been a shepherd.' Another recent highlight was Craig David revealing that his lyrics had 'matured'. 'So what is the longest word on the album?' asked Amstell. 'Avalanche,' said David. 'What are you rhyming that with?' Amstell persisted, with a dangerous patience. 'Mountain,' said David.
It is this kind of thing - the subtle, forensic and (crucially) funny exposure of pop artists (as nice, mean, clever, daft, sane, bonkers, pompous, modest, deluded and everything in between) that has earned Popworld cult status among its audience, which may be small-ish (ranging from 500,000 to a 1m), but straddles a to-die-for water-cooler demographic of teenagers, hungover students and twentysomethings. As well as sad old people like me, who should know better. The difference being that, this time, adults aren't watching a pop programme in some misguided attempt to be young or cool. It's more that we want to be amused, and Popworld is amusing, it's as simple as that.
All of which accounts for the scenes of pop-cultural mourning which greeted the news of Amstell and Oliver's departure, leaving hard acts to follow for their replacements, comedian Alex Zane and newcomer Alexa Chung. One reason for the misery is that half-decent terrestrial music shows have always been thin on the ground. Of those, some, now defunct, were a bit limp anyway (CD:UK); others are still soldiering on (Top of The Pops has been relegated to a BBC2 slot; Later ... With Jools Holland flies an ever-lonelier flag for the more serious muso); while the best of the rest are gone but not forgotten (The Tube; Whatever You Want; snatches of the much-maligned The Word
Although Popworld has little in common with a show such as The Tube, it shares its sense of reflecting the times - in Popworld's case, our confusing multi-media/blogging/downloading times. But it also harks back to the best on offer from previous eras - including, from the publishing world, the irreverence of old-school Smash Hits!, the merciless skewerings of NME, through to the brutal-when-necessary celebrity demystification of Heat magazine.
When we meet up, Amstell and Oliver also point to the spiritual debt Popworld owes to chat-show hosts such as Ruby Wax, Channel 4-era Graham Norton, David Letterman and Jonathan Ross. 'Simon has always said we're a chat show pretending to be a music show,' says Oliver. 'Chat shows have always done that irreverent thing,' agrees Amstell. 'It just looks new on a music show.'
Amstell, 26, arrives first for the interview; mop-haired, cute and gangly, a distracted 'mad professor' demeanour masking a dry, free-wheeling wit. (At one point, referring to the younger sections of their audience, I ask if they like children. Amstell blinks: 'All of them?') Arriving a little later, 21-year-old Oliver is friendly and bright; her queenly 'cool' nicely complementing Amstell's deceptive aura of runtish anti-cool that has served him so well in interviews.
In the early days of Popworld the pair didn't gel, but these days, on-screen and off, they banter together non-stop, with obvious affection. 'The chemistry is undeniable!' cries Amstell mock-earnestly, but you do wonder why they're calling it a day. 'We'd got to the point where it was as funny as we were ever going to get it,' says Amstell. 'We thought, we need to stop this before it gets too stupid or boring.' Their leaving together was 'less of a pact than an understanding'. 'We felt we'd done the job,' says Amstell. 'We did a McFly special last year and one of the things was a space hopper race, which I thought was a good idea at the time, until I watched the footage back and thought, "I'm 26, I shouldn't be on a space hopper, racing McFly."'
Amstell originally wanted to leave last Christmas, but Oliver persuaded him to stay. 'The thing about Popworld is it became such a luxury to be doing this great show every week, and to have people stop you in the street and say it's good,' she says. 'You get really cosy. I was definitely getting too cosy. I would probably have done Popworld until I was 60.' She smiles ruefully at Amstell. 'It feels a bit like leaving school.' 'But you have to leave school, or you get stuck,' says Amstell. 'I think we need to be a bit scared, a bit challenged again.'
The son of a courier-company owner, Amstell grew up in Essex, first becoming interested in working in television when he saw Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin hosting The Big Breakfast 'I thought, that looks like the best fun you could have. I'll do something like that.' At 21, he landed Popworld after being 'encouraged' to leave the children's channel Nickelodeon - 'I was sacked for being too sarcastic.'
Oliver, only 16 when she started on Popworld, is the daughter of Andrea Oliver, from Eighties punk-funk-boho combo Rip, Rig and Panic (her aunt is Neneh Cherry). Brought up in west London, Oliver says she feels lucky to have had an upbringing surrounded by 'cool adults', but doesn't necessarily think she was predestined to end up in the public eye. She got the job after an audition where she called Britney Spears 'an idiot', and managed to name all the members of Five; 'skills' she puts down to not going to school for a couple of years, spending all her time watching MTV.
Martin Cunning, the MD of At It Productions, which has made Popworld for Channel 4 since its launch in 2001, is excited about Zane and Chung taking over: 'There comes a time, and it is time, to reinvent and reinvigorate the show.' But he describes Amstell and Oliver as 'absolutely, without doubt, a great double act'.
'The great dynamic about Simon and Miquita was always that he was older and funnier, but she was the one who understood music,' says Cunning. 'He was the twisted 21-year-old gay geek, who was sitting in the Essex suburbs bored out of his mind. She was the 16-year-old schoolgirl probably not going to school when she should do, and running around with a fast west London crowd. I could imagine both of them were probably sitting in front of Top of the Pops and MTV, slagging off the videos all day, in different parts of England, just fuming. We always wanted the show to be different. The idea of Popworld has always been, and will remain, that we love music, we're just not fussed about the music industry.'
Popworld started life as a website founded by pop mogul Simon Fuller, and the accompanying show (first transmitted daily at teatime on E4) was originally intended for a much younger audience. 'They didn't really want edgy, they wanted pretend-edgy, but we gave them the real thing, which was quite a shock,' says Amstell. 'We did an interview with Atomic Kitten, and one of the girls was pregnant at the time. They did some awful a-capella thing, and they said, "Oh, the baby's kicking," and I suggested it was because it wanted them to stop. And our boss at the time said: "I don't think you can say that kind of thing to Atomic Kitten." And from there it took about a year of fighting to get to the point where we wanted it to be.' Were they on a mission? 'Just to make a good funny show,' says Amstell. 'We weren't out to expose pop or anything.'
Amstell and Oliver insist they've never set out to be 'nasty'. 'We don't have a studio audience, so really we need to be making them [the guests] laugh as well,' says Amstell. Gay and Jewish, the (non-camp, non-orthodox) Amstell certainly seems to save these magic bullets for special occasions. 'It's nice to ask Rachel Stevens what's her favourite thing about being a Jew. And get a dull response.' Then there were moments such as the infamous encounter with the homophobic Beanie Man ('You won't even give me a hug?'). 'I think the most important thing you can do is make the label irrelevant,' says Amstell.
Elsewhere, with Popworld, it's often the case that artists are their own worst enemies. Just as the presenters know how to be funny, they also know how to be quiet and still and let the moment, however uncomfortable, be. Guests such as Daniel Bedingfield are a case in point - his constant, bewildering attempts to 'out-zany' Amstell, and the subsequent bouncing of metaphorical tumbleweed through the studio, have been among the show's most painful moments, and the most priceless.
That said, Popworld doesn't do musical snobbery. As well as bands such as the Scissor Sisters, Hard-Fi and the Kaiser Chiefs, the programme enjoys strangely symbiotic relationships with less obviously 'cool' guests: they were quick to realise that 'there's something intrinsically funny about Craig David and Daniel Bedingfield', as well as what Amstell terms, 'The naive little bands, the McFlys and things'. 'They never get offended,' says Oliver. 'They always laugh, we always laugh. It's the nicest way Popworld can go.' Amstell agrees: 'We really only get annoyed by arrogance and pomposity, that sort of thing. These are the things we like to mock. And anyone who's boring.'
This seems to be where Popworld has become misunderstood in some quarters. Its base-note strikes one as far from malicious, more mischievous and surreal, which is probably why so many acts have returned time and again. Talking to The Observer by phone, McFly's Tom Fletcher confirms it was always 'good fun' going on Popworld. 'If you're light-hearted and know they're going to mess around, it's fine. I've watched it and people get offended and upset, because all they want to talk about is the new single or album, but we've always liked how silly it is - the more Simon took the mickey out of us, the funnier it was. Our fans love stuff like that.'
Other artists have viewed things rather differently, and refused to appear again - Girls Aloud after the toilet question; Rachel Stevens after being exposed as a bore. Then there are those who have cut interviews short (Britney Spears, after Amstell suggested she was 'nuts'), or opted for a live performance over an interview (Gareth Gates), or refused to come on at all.
'If you don't come in because you're worried we're going to take the piss then you must think we have the ammunition, so that means you think you're shit,' shrugs Amstell. He and Oliver recall an encounter with an unamused Ronan Keating, who they interviewed in the style of a police interrogation: 'I put it to you that life is not a roller coaster, it's a teacup ride, because it's so boring.' Oliver sighs: 'If only he'd just relaxed and laughed, then it would have been fun.' Quite.
Thinking about it, the Keating incident may lie at the heart of what has made Popworld so special. Watching someone like Keating bristle at silly 'beneath-him' questions, or Stefani sourly refusing cheese (or a 'tickle' from Amstell), behind their eyes it is as if they are screaming: 'What happened to the untouchable celebrity dream? I bet Frank Sinatra didn't have to put up with this!' What Popworld is good at is highlighting the gulf between what celebrities want from fame (non-critical adoration, respect) and what they actually get (automatic ridicule; talking horses). How they deal with this, in situations such as they find on Popworld, has become a modern celebrity litmus test of cleverness and humour - some pass, some don't.
'It's really bad to show kids the only way to be successful is to be famous, anyway,' says an unrepentant Oliver. 'I don't know why anybody would want to be famous,' agrees Amstell. 'It's a horrible life. You watch things like Lisa Scott-Lee's programme [MTV's Totally Scott-Lee] and think: "Aren't you embarrassed?" That's why we don't do that thing of - let's celebrate these stars! What are we celebrating? Mindless people, basically.'
Their own plans for the future include a certain number of (separate) TV projects. Oliver is also hoping to act (which she would have done originally had she not been blown off course by 'the greatest job in the world'), while Amstell wants to pursue his stand-up career (he has been performing since he was 14, and will unveil his first one-hour set at the forthcoming Edinburgh Festival). Meanwhile, both seem amused and flattered by the idea that their sojourn on Popworld might be remembered.
'Do you really think so?' says Oliver. Well, yes, in a nice culturally meaningful way, and also on any amount of dreadful clip-shows called 'I Love 2001'. Oliver groans and laughs: 'I never thought of that. That would be terrible.' Amstell stares ahead miserably: 'Kate Thornton will still be there.'
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