Comedian Jenny Eclair has described a new artificial intelligence (AI) podcast using Sir Michael Parkinson’s voice as “a terrible idea”, adding she “can’t compete” with the late chat show presenter.
The new podcast, named Virtually Parkinson, uses a computerised version of the Parkinson presenter’s voice to interview a number of real-life guests. Sir Michael died last year aged 88.
Its first episode was released on Monday, and features singer Jason Derulo answering questions about his upbringing, fatherhood and fracturing part of his neck.
Speaking about the podcast on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Eclair, 64, said: “I’m furious, because there are living people like me who’ve still got mortgages, I’ve just actually mostly got rid of mine.
“But there’s not enough room. I know he was dearly loved and that sort of thing but there’s loads of back catalogue content that people can help themselves to.
“This is a terrible, terrible idea, we’re all fighting over the same space you know, the podcasts and the telly, and everybody’s desperately trying to say ‘me over here, please listen to my stuff’.
“I’ve got a podcast and I don’t think I can compete with Michael Parkinson, even when he’s not living and breathing.”
Eclair co-hosts the podcast Older And Wider with Judith Holder, who she worked with on BBC Two show Grumpy Old Women. In 1995 she was the first woman to win the Perrier Award at Edinburgh Festival, then the UK’s top comedy award.
Sir Michael’s son Michael ‘Mike’ Parkinson Jr told Good Morning Britain last year that the eight-part series had come after his father had told him he wished he could “bring back people I never had a chance to interview”.
Mr Parkinson Jr said the podcast was not “bringing my father back” and was instead “just paying tribute to his legacy”.
Benjamin Field, from producer Deep Fusion Films, previously told the programme it has fed more than 1,000 hours of Sir Michael’s interviews into AI, and added that the company is “not passing it off as Michael Parkinson”.
In response to Eclair, the production company said: “Jenny’s comments are precisely why the podcast was created, AI is a subject which people have strong opinions about, but is AI as scary as people think it is?
“Is it really coming for people’s jobs? Virtually Parkinson exists to explore the relationship between AI and humans, it simply couldn’t do that without having an AI host, so this is not a case of an AI replacing a human job.
“In fact, the podcast is launched at a time when the creative sector has been hit very hard and many find themselves out of work and Virtually Parkinson has created 15 jobs, which otherwise wouldn’t have existed.”
