Lazarus

 "Unspun World With John Simpson" has won the coveted Wednesday-BBC2-slot after Newsnight, where in the last two weeks we've had the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons and a Louis Theroux show. 

John's publicised the new weekly offering with an interview with The Observer, which makes it clear it's all his own idea. Natch.

You’ll be back on our screens next month presenting a new, weekly current affairs show on BBC Two called Unspun World. What can you say about it?

My plan is to have a no-nonsense, no-frills programme where we work out four or five topics a week and we’ll go to the BBC expert and get the absolutely unvarnished facts about it. What’s really, really happening, not that endless business of getting one person on one side, one person on the other, and they talk it out. I got the idea really from the Economist, those five articles at the start of the magazine: Is China going to invade Taiwan? Are we really going to have Donald Trump back as US president? Those big questions. And the great thing is that when you’re dealing with BBC people, you can get real answers out of them.

Were you surprised to get another big presenting opportunity on the BBC?

It’s really something for an organisation to take a bloke of 77 and say: “Look, here’s a train set.” I’ve got a 15-year-old son and I said to him: “God, this is fantastic. I feel like Lazarus.” And my son said: “Who does he play for?” I feel I’ve had a rebirth, certainly a resurrection.