Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

This week I’d like to talk about a new TV interview show on BCC called ‘The Assembly’. The format of this show involves a celebrity being grilled by a panel of journalists over the course of 3 hours (30 minutes of which are broadcast). Sounds simple enough, however, the unique thing about this TV show is that the panel is comprised entirely of 35 neurodivergent novice journalists! Bucking the growing trend of highly scripted, edited, agenda driven interviews, the show is an un-filtered breath of fresh air where no question is out of bounds.

The Assembly is carefully recorded with autists in mind to prevent sensory overload, such as recording in a room with lots of natural light (to avoid fluorescent artificial lights). This show is the UK adaptation of the popular French show ‘Les Rencontres du Papotin‘ where many French public figures such as Emanuel Macron were interviewed by a neurodivergent panel run by the newspaper Le Papotin. In honour of Autism Acceptance Week, the BBC broadcast an interview with Welsh actor Michael Sheen on Friday the 5th of April. There are no further episodes currently scheduled, but showrunners have lots of eager celebrities wishing to be interviewed should The Assembly be picked up for series. You can see a trailer for the series here:

The show is a very heartwarming and wholesome affair that has had reviewers raving about it. The questions are so unexpected (ranging from Michael’s opinions on the royal family to the age gap between him and his partner) with delightful results. Michael is such a kind and patient interviewee providing insightful and hilarious answers to the delight of his audience. In one particularly touching moment, a very shy interviewer named Leo is struggling to get past his nerves to ask his question, but Michael is patient with him, allowing him the time and space to ask a very insightful question about Michaels favourite poet.

All in all the show is a wonderful change to your regularly scheduled BBC interview, with the added bonus that the show provides visibility and creates opportunities for the often marginalized autistic community.

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings! 🙂

Have a lovely weekend!

Aoife