Interview: Daisy Goodwin, Talkback Thames/BBC2 (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
You don't often hear a TV boss admit to needing therapy. It is rarer still that a leading programme-maker will confess to "screwing things up" throughout her career. So it is utterly disarming that such a powerful hyper-achiever as Daisy Goodwin is so openly self-doubting. She might be the queen of lifestyle television, a best-selling poetry anthologist and an accomplished presenter in her own right - but all the success, it seems, can't quite resolve the personal uncertainties.
Not that Goodwin, 42, has any doubts about the programmes themselves. As editorial director of Talkback Productions, her hits have included How Clean is Your House?, Too Posh to Wash, House Doctor and Grand Designs - all shows about self-improvement, she insists, which "inform as well as entertain".
"Educative sounds a bit pompous, but you do learn stuff from How Clean is Your House?," she says. "And Grand Designs, I would say, has probably changed people's aspirations about their homes."
Earlier this year, Goodwin applied to be controller of BBC2, suggesting in a newspaper interview that its arts and current affairs output were not "edgy" or "challenging" enough. She now insists that this was no criticism of the former controller, Jane Root, who "thought really big". "I suppose I felt that there was room for more innovation," she says. "You couldn't just rely on big events. Actually, I think it's quite a good time now for serious television." Roly Keating, she adds, will be a more effective controller than she ever could be. "At this time the job is very political, and I'm quite sure Roly's better at that than me."
TOMORROW night, Goodwin will present Essential Poems For Christmas on BBC2. She was, she says, "an absolute nightmare" to work with. "If you've been behind the camera, you know that everybody's lying to you the entire time. I've done it myself so many times."
Her books and broadcasts, she claims, have brought poetry to a new audience - even if some critics accuse her of using her looks and status cynically to market "easy" verse. "I can't be apologetic about trying to market poetry," she replies. "It would be fine to have a go at me if I was stopping other poets being published, but that's so not the case. The number of people buying poetry is declining."
She was particularly offended by a recent Andrew O'Hagan essay in the London Review of Books, which accused her of "patronising" readers by avoiding "difficult" poetry. "Here's a man whose last book was about Lena Zavaroni, which you might say was serving out popular culture for an intellectual elite," she says. "Is that just a tad patronising? I think he was saying that poetry should be left for people who can understand it. But you don't see poets turning people away at readings saying, 'Oh, sorry, I don't think you'll understand'."
As Goodwin tells it, she was a "bog-standard" BBC producer when her therapist showed her the power of poetry. She was running BBC2' s Bookworm, where, after seeking out t he n at i on' s favourite poems, she spent six months worrying whether to leave. "My therapist said I should read this poem by C P Cavafy about making a decision. It was an epiphany. I thought, 'Wow'. If only she'd given me the poem earlier, I'd have saved a fortune."
The "epiphany" that led her to leave sounds a convenient backstory, but Goodwin insists she is not exaggerating the power poems have to move her. Indeed, her jolly, laughter-filled conversation is peppered with lines from Robert Frost and Shakespeare.
The TV economy has been good to a super-indy like Talkback. Although, "it's getting harder to get the margins that you need to grow", the newly raised BBC "indy" quota is good news, she says. "There's always an appetite for good ideas and strong production, and if people can find them in the same place, they'll go for it."
But how did such a rising star - tutored by Norman Stone at Cambridge, before winning a film scholarship to Columbia - find herself in therapy in the first place? "I've had a very chequered career," she replies. "I'm very bad at managing up, the BBC let me go in my twenties, I've got very good at screwing things up ... Why do I need therapy?"
She pauses. "I was very depressed, went through this scary period when I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. All creative people, I think, are probably at bottom creative because they're trying to get away from something."
It is not entirely clear what Goodwin is escaping - she seems to have had a comfortable upbringing, the daughter of Jocasta Innes, the interior designer, and Richard Goodwin, a film producer. Yet only all-embracing TV projects, it seems, can disperse her demons. "You get to this wonderful moment when your brain concentrates on just one thing - and, apart from heroin, it's the only release from that existential pain. But it works for five seconds, you feel great, then you think - okay, now what?"
HER critics seem more pained by Goodwin's populist lifestyle shows. "What is really patronising is a load of people who don't really watch television - the so-called opinion formers - opining about shows they know nothing about," she says. "They think, 'Oh, it's ghastly makeover'. But they're not intended for them. The people who watch love these shows, they help them live their lives."
The critics' most recent target is Channel 4's The Sex Inspectors, which Goodwin has defended as "the most public-service programme I will ever make". Newspapers called it prurient, while sex therapists questioned the qualifications of co-presenter Tracey Cox. "That's unfair," Goodwin answers. "Tracey's got a psychology degree. I didn't pull her off the street." The show does not offer therapy, she says, only advice. "I wouldn't have made it if I'd thought it was exploitative. Nor do I think it's titillating. It's quite disturbing sometimes. It's fascinating."
Some accuse Goodwin of helping push Channel 4 "downmarket". She disagrees. "One of the great things about Channel 4 is that it's prepared to be honest," she says. "Why should we be so scared about sex? There's nothing wrong with trying to disperse some of that embarrassment. I mean, my dad watched that show. He's 70. He said, 'If only I'd seen it when I was younger'."
She does admit to making mistakes - "lots". She turned down Trinny and Susannah, for instance. "God, pretty much everything I wish I'd done differently. I find it quite hard to watch my shows." The insecurity, it seems, never relents. "I worry that I will wake up tomorrow and stop having ideas. Will I just lose it? That's why I need the bloody poetry - because I feel this close to disaster most of the time." She is currently working on The Apprentice, BBC2's Alan Sugarled version of the Donald Trump hit, but she says she can never rest on her laurels for a second. "It's probably why I ended up in therapy. I'm always thinking, what next?"
Not many TV executives are so open, and Goodwin's self-deprecation is refreshing. But she is no naif, and there is, after all, a journalist to charm. A warning bell is sounded by her mother's web diary, which recently proudly compared Daisy with Kimberly Quinn as a "femme fatale" who impresses men using "oomph, laughs, conversational firepower and sex appeal".
So does that explain her uncommon frankness today? "I know I've been too honest," she giggles. "I've always been impressed by people who, as Shakespeare would put it, are the lords and owners of their faces. I really wish I could be like that, but I'm not. And what would be the point of spinning you a pack of lies?"
(Evening Standard, December 22 2004)
You don't often hear a TV boss admit to needing therapy. It is rarer still that a leading programme-maker will confess to "screwing things up" throughout her career. So it is utterly disarming that such a powerful hyper-achiever as Daisy Goodwin is so openly self-doubting. She might be the queen of lifestyle television, a best-selling poetry anthologist and an accomplished presenter in her own right - but all the success, it seems, can't quite resolve the personal uncertainties.
Not that Goodwin, 42, has any doubts about the programmes themselves. As editorial director of Talkback Productions, her hits have included How Clean is Your House?, Too Posh to Wash, House Doctor and Grand Designs - all shows about self-improvement, she insists, which "inform as well as entertain".
"Educative sounds a bit pompous, but you do learn stuff from How Clean is Your House?," she says. "And Grand Designs, I would say, has probably changed people's aspirations about their homes."
Earlier this year, Goodwin applied to be controller of BBC2, suggesting in a newspaper interview that its arts and current affairs output were not "edgy" or "challenging" enough. She now insists that this was no criticism of the former controller, Jane Root, who "thought really big". "I suppose I felt that there was room for more innovation," she says. "You couldn't just rely on big events. Actually, I think it's quite a good time now for serious television." Roly Keating, she adds, will be a more effective controller than she ever could be. "At this time the job is very political, and I'm quite sure Roly's better at that than me."
TOMORROW night, Goodwin will present Essential Poems For Christmas on BBC2. She was, she says, "an absolute nightmare" to work with. "If you've been behind the camera, you know that everybody's lying to you the entire time. I've done it myself so many times."
Her books and broadcasts, she claims, have brought poetry to a new audience - even if some critics accuse her of using her looks and status cynically to market "easy" verse. "I can't be apologetic about trying to market poetry," she replies. "It would be fine to have a go at me if I was stopping other poets being published, but that's so not the case. The number of people buying poetry is declining."
She was particularly offended by a recent Andrew O'Hagan essay in the London Review of Books, which accused her of "patronising" readers by avoiding "difficult" poetry. "Here's a man whose last book was about Lena Zavaroni, which you might say was serving out popular culture for an intellectual elite," she says. "Is that just a tad patronising? I think he was saying that poetry should be left for people who can understand it. But you don't see poets turning people away at readings saying, 'Oh, sorry, I don't think you'll understand'."
As Goodwin tells it, she was a "bog-standard" BBC producer when her therapist showed her the power of poetry. She was running BBC2' s Bookworm, where, after seeking out t he n at i on' s favourite poems, she spent six months worrying whether to leave. "My therapist said I should read this poem by C P Cavafy about making a decision. It was an epiphany. I thought, 'Wow'. If only she'd given me the poem earlier, I'd have saved a fortune."
The "epiphany" that led her to leave sounds a convenient backstory, but Goodwin insists she is not exaggerating the power poems have to move her. Indeed, her jolly, laughter-filled conversation is peppered with lines from Robert Frost and Shakespeare.
The TV economy has been good to a super-indy like Talkback. Although, "it's getting harder to get the margins that you need to grow", the newly raised BBC "indy" quota is good news, she says. "There's always an appetite for good ideas and strong production, and if people can find them in the same place, they'll go for it."
But how did such a rising star - tutored by Norman Stone at Cambridge, before winning a film scholarship to Columbia - find herself in therapy in the first place? "I've had a very chequered career," she replies. "I'm very bad at managing up, the BBC let me go in my twenties, I've got very good at screwing things up ... Why do I need therapy?"
She pauses. "I was very depressed, went through this scary period when I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. All creative people, I think, are probably at bottom creative because they're trying to get away from something."
It is not entirely clear what Goodwin is escaping - she seems to have had a comfortable upbringing, the daughter of Jocasta Innes, the interior designer, and Richard Goodwin, a film producer. Yet only all-embracing TV projects, it seems, can disperse her demons. "You get to this wonderful moment when your brain concentrates on just one thing - and, apart from heroin, it's the only release from that existential pain. But it works for five seconds, you feel great, then you think - okay, now what?"
HER critics seem more pained by Goodwin's populist lifestyle shows. "What is really patronising is a load of people who don't really watch television - the so-called opinion formers - opining about shows they know nothing about," she says. "They think, 'Oh, it's ghastly makeover'. But they're not intended for them. The people who watch love these shows, they help them live their lives."
The critics' most recent target is Channel 4's The Sex Inspectors, which Goodwin has defended as "the most public-service programme I will ever make". Newspapers called it prurient, while sex therapists questioned the qualifications of co-presenter Tracey Cox. "That's unfair," Goodwin answers. "Tracey's got a psychology degree. I didn't pull her off the street." The show does not offer therapy, she says, only advice. "I wouldn't have made it if I'd thought it was exploitative. Nor do I think it's titillating. It's quite disturbing sometimes. It's fascinating."
Some accuse Goodwin of helping push Channel 4 "downmarket". She disagrees. "One of the great things about Channel 4 is that it's prepared to be honest," she says. "Why should we be so scared about sex? There's nothing wrong with trying to disperse some of that embarrassment. I mean, my dad watched that show. He's 70. He said, 'If only I'd seen it when I was younger'."
She does admit to making mistakes - "lots". She turned down Trinny and Susannah, for instance. "God, pretty much everything I wish I'd done differently. I find it quite hard to watch my shows." The insecurity, it seems, never relents. "I worry that I will wake up tomorrow and stop having ideas. Will I just lose it? That's why I need the bloody poetry - because I feel this close to disaster most of the time." She is currently working on The Apprentice, BBC2's Alan Sugarled version of the Donald Trump hit, but she says she can never rest on her laurels for a second. "It's probably why I ended up in therapy. I'm always thinking, what next?"
Not many TV executives are so open, and Goodwin's self-deprecation is refreshing. But she is no naif, and there is, after all, a journalist to charm. A warning bell is sounded by her mother's web diary, which recently proudly compared Daisy with Kimberly Quinn as a "femme fatale" who impresses men using "oomph, laughs, conversational firepower and sex appeal".
So does that explain her uncommon frankness today? "I know I've been too honest," she giggles. "I've always been impressed by people who, as Shakespeare would put it, are the lords and owners of their faces. I really wish I could be like that, but I'm not. And what would be the point of spinning you a pack of lies?"
(Evening Standard, December 22 2004)
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