Yahoo News Alan Davies: 'I never want to be Piers Morgan'
Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled returns tonight for a fifth series of celebrity guests engaging in unrehearsed - but really quite engaging - conversation.
With no set theme or topic, the roundtable talks can veer from crazy gags to more poignant moments - but host Davies told Digital Spy that he never looks to exploit a guest's personal life.
"There was one [story] that I regretted not getting to," he revealed. "We had Germaine Greer on and she's someone I really respect and admire.
"She was talking - backstage, in the green room - about children. She's never been able to have children and she had wanted to have them and it was one of the regrets of her life that it didn't work out.
"But she told me that journalists had written articles about her, suggesting that she'd made a political choice - as the arch-feminist - to not be a mother, to not have children, as if it was somehow a waste of her life or something.
"But it was nonsense - she wanted to have children and couldn't, so not only was it wrong and painted her in a very bad light, it was also profoundly upsetting. She was quite open and frank about it. Not down in the dumps, just open and frank and interesting on the subject."
But an attempt to have Greer discuss her experiences on camera led Davies down a dead-end - with fellow guest Jonathan Ross comparing the incident to Piers Morgan's Life Stories.
"The last thing on Earth you want to be like is Piers Morgan!" Davies laughed. "I mean, that is the ultimate insult. I looked at Jonathan and he knew, he could tell that he'd really hurt my feelings. And he actually said to me, 'I'm sorry, that's going too far!' so it finished on a laugh.
"But it was interesting, because As Yet Untitled is a show that can hold all kinds of different anecdotes. We had Patrick Kielty on, talking about his father being murdered in Northern Ireland. This was a really poignant moment
"It's up to the guest and if there's something in their life, in their background, that I know about beforehand and I think might be interesting, I'll always check with them first. I'm not there to catch people out. Primarily, the thing we wanna do is have a really funny conversation, y'know?"
Melanie C, Ardal O Hanlon, Davina McCall, Jimmy Carr and Reece Shearsmith will be among those sitting down for a chat in upcoming episodes.
"Melanie C was good value," Davies enthused. "I've always had a bit of a crush on Melanie C over the years and she looks amazing!
"She was good, because although she's had this solo career for years now and done lots of albums and lots of successful West End shows and television work and all the rest of it, she was quite happy to natter on about getting up to hijinks with the Spice Girls!
"It was really refreshingly easy to have her there. No ego. So that was good fun. We try to think of people to have on as guests who are a bit outside the normal realms of panel shows and chat shows."
Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled returns to Dave tonight at 10pm.
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