New Morning Report co-hosts John Campbell and Ingrid Hipkiss<\/p>\n
\u201cThat took a turn,\u201d Hipkiss said at the conclusion of the interview. \u201cJust so you know, we don\u2019t usually take spas with our interviewees.\u201d He said he would bear that in mind when speaking to the Prime Minister later. <\/p>\n
Nathan Rarere came on to talk about sport. <\/p>\n
\u201cKia ora, Nate,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cHow\u2019s the leg?\u201d <\/p>\n
Rarere replied: \u201cI need a spa, I think.\u201d <\/p>\n
Campbell laughed his infectious, impulsive childlike laugh. He said a listener had already written in to complain about the mental image of him in a spa with the Prime Minister. <\/p>\n
By the time the Prime Minister showed up for his interview, Campbell had done mostly light and fluffy. How would he transition? <\/p>\n
Breakfast host Tova O’Brien interviews Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on her first day on the show. Photo \/ TVNZ<\/p>\n
Almost unbelievably, Luxon opened with the exact same line he\u2019d used when talking with Campbell\u2019s former colleague Tova O\u2019Brien during her first show on Breakfast two weeks ago: \u201cHow\u2019s the first day at the new school?\u201d <\/p>\n
Campbell laughed enthusiastically and replied that if he studied harder, he might one day graduate. If Luxon hoped the opening gambit would soften Campbell, he was as wrong as he had been when O\u2019Brien had to remind him he was the country\u2019s Prime Minister, not its CEO. <\/p>\n
Campbell opened by asking what the PM had been hearing about Cyclone Vaianu. Luxon tossed off some talking points and Campbell interrupted. Luxon began to drift from the question and again Campbell interrupted. <\/p>\n
When Luxon began talking about the national flood plan, Campbell interrupted once more, but this time the Prime Minister carried on talking. Campbell gave way, then, when Luxon finished, he said concerns had been expressed about turning the proposed flood plan into action. Luxon again began rambling, and again Campbell cut him off: <\/p>\n
\u201cPrime Minister, sorry to interrupt but the road is closed again …\u201d As statement of fact: Perfect. As allegory for the interview itself: Even more so. <\/p>\n
At the end of the interview, he told the Prime Minister he and Hipkiss would be alternating conducting the weekly interview. It was a very Campbellian thing to do: A signal that he was part of a team and not the CEO of Morning Report. <\/p>\n
John Campbell.<\/p>\n
He had hit his stride. He turned around a boring interview with a guy from Australian Supercars by saying: \u201cMitch, I know this, you\u2019re just going to cringe when I ask you this question and go into a foetal position and go, \u2018Good god who\u2019s interviewing me?\u2019\u2026 What is a Supercar?\u201d <\/p>\n
Mitch went on to say the cars are currently on the water on the way to Christchurch for the next event, at which point Campbell produced another zinger: \u201cMitch,\u201d he said, \u201cI got this job because I don\u2019t miss a trick. You say the cars are on a boat but there ain\u2019t no boats in Taup\u014d.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is the power of a master interviewer: Someone who deeply understands not just their subjects\u2019 minds, emotions and behaviours but also their listeners\u2019 \u2013 and knows how to manipulate the former to serve the latter. <\/p>\n
In the show\u2019s last half hour, he went to another level. It was not just the quality of his work but the verve and brio with which he conducted it. In the last 10 minutes, he reached a fever pitch of Campbell-ness, entering something close to a manic state and producing 10 minutes of radio so chock full of incredible moments that it was impossible to turn away. <\/p>\n
First, after a field report on a barber finished on a note about awkward haircut chat, the following remarkable exchange: <\/p>\n
Hipkiss: \u201cAre you a haircut chatter, John?\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cChat! Constantly,\u201d he said. \u201cI get my haircut every second Saturday.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hipkiss spoke for all of us when she said, her voice full of shock: \u201cEvery second Saturday?\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he said, deadpan. \u201cI\u2019m super uptight and just like to look like this.\u201d <\/p>\n
During the final interview of the day, with the head of Wellington Zoo, he uttered the already-immortal line: \u201cI don\u2019t want to cast aspersions on the monogamy of your gibbons but could they be polyamorous if they wanted to?\u201d <\/p>\n
When the zoo\u2019s head told him they were monogamous even in the wild, he appeared to completely lose control, shrieking: \u201cGo the gibbons!\u201d <\/p>\n
He slipped in a comment about the poetry of Sylvia Plath, and then, too soon, it was 8.59am and time to sign off. <\/p>\n
\u201cJohn, are you going to be back tomorrow?\u201d Hipkiss asked <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve loved it!\u201d he enthused. \u201cI love working with you, Ingrid.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cOh well,\u201d she said, \u201cit\u2019s early days.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Morning Report co-hosts John Campbell and Ingrid Hipkiss \u201cThat took a turn,\u201d Hipkiss said at the conclusion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[196404,44969,1558,74701,36423,196401,156,1888,196406,196400,196405,305,5126,5978,19475,130,1304,157,117,111,139,69,5908,90,196402,36303,4965,53650,1560,35299,2751,544,4497,6100,196403,2044,1316,37458,6730,2963],"class_list":{"0":"post-376728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-558am","9":"tag-aunt","10":"tag-been","11":"tag-campbells","12":"tag-edges","13":"tag-effusive","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-first","16":"tag-giddy","17":"tag-gravitas","18":"tag-gushed","19":"tag-have","20":"tag-john","21":"tag-might","22":"tag-minutes","23":"tag-more","24":"tag-morning","25":"tag-music","26":"tag-new","27":"tag-new-zealand","28":"tag-newzealand","29":"tag-nz","30":"tag-official","31":"tag-on","32":"tag-preshow","33":"tag-prior","34":"tag-radio","35":"tag-reassured","36":"tag-report","37":"tag-reviewed","38":"tag-sand","39":"tag-some","40":"tag-start","41":"tag-still","42":"tag-tease","43":"tag-time","44":"tag-when","45":"tag-worried","46":"tag-would","47":"tag-zealands"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}