CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews The Dick Cavett Show... and gives it FIVE stars: The vintage U.S. chat show host who treats guests like intelligent adults

The Dick Cavett Show (YouTube)

Rating: Five out of five stars 

What a question to ask one of the most famous celebrities in the world: 'Did it ever occur to you that you might have caused thousands of kids to [suffer] drug problems they might not have had otherwise?'

That's what U.S. chat show host Dick Cavett asked , 18 months after The broke up. Imagine any TV interviewer asking such a forceful question today. It's unthinkable.

More staggering still, despite gasps and boos at Cavett's audacity from the studio audience, George insisted on giving a thoughtful answer.

Faced with endless reels of repeats on every channel that wasn't wall-to-wall or World Cup football, I've been delving into one of the treasure troves of , the Dick Cavett Show archive, and found myself absorbed for hours in something that has ceased to exist in modern television - intelligent conversation.

Every couple of days, the 89-year-old Cavett and his team upload an excerpt from his encounters with A-list actors, musicians, athletes, comedians and politicians, on American television from 1968 to 1996.

His interviewing style was unique: each guest was treated as an educated, articulate adult, with opinions worth hearing. A few seemed intimidated, but most were flattered and stimulated.

George looked happy to be put on the spot. He knew what to expect: a few weeks earlier, John Lennon and Yoko Ono had faced a grilling on the show. After a couple of evasions, while he gathered his thoughts, the guitarist pointed out it was never his intention to influence people to take drugs.

But if journalists persisted in asking whether he'd used LSD, he wasn't going to lie. Where did the responsibility really lie - with him or the media?

Cavett had a fondness for British guests. His long chat in 1971 with a chain-smoking Peter Cook, while Dudley Moore giggles incoherently at his side, is a joy.

That same year, in London, he achieved a truly bizarre pairing, with divisive MP Enoch Powell and a pre-007 Roger Moore. Quite aware that he was being goaded, and revelling in it, Powell made a series of deliberately inflammatory predictions - including a claim that, by the 21st century, two-fifths of Birmingham's population would be Black or Asian.

That figure is no longer provocative. According to the 2021 census, it's a slight underestimate.

Moore refused to be drawn, until Cavett lobbed provocation in his direction, asking if rumours were true that he was 'one of the wealthiest actors in the business'.

'You saw me ride in on my bicycle,' parried Roger.

'With a chauffeur on the handlebars!' came the lightning reply.

What TV presenter today delivers one-liners like Dick Cavett? When actor Richard Harris stumbled in, badly hungover with his nose and eyebrow bloodied from a brawl, the host gave him a long, appraising look and remarked, 'I can't help noticing that a lot of your face is not injured.'