Noel Thompson, BBC Northern Ireland's inquisitor-in-chief, can walk through a political crisis yet retain both his professional edge and his sense of humour. He talks to Northern News Editor Dan Keenan.
Noel Thompson breezes into the BBC make-up room with a fresh sense of purpose. Speaking out of the corner of his mouth amid a few pats of powder puff, he jokes wryly that he now has a story on his hands for Hearts and Minds.
It's 3.30 p.m. on Thursday, just over four hours before his broadcast slot. Also in the room are Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly and Alban Maginness of the SDLP. For the previous 10 minutes they have shown each other more tolerant manners than any interpersonal warmth.
Thompson greets them both as buddies, blatantly ignoring the fact that these two are political rivals from the same Belfast constituency. One of them will be on the attack in the imminent interview. Thompson employs the small-talk skills of an experienced priest.
Forty-eight hours earlier when we had first met, the schedule for his current affairs programme was next to bare. Both he and his producer had been convincing themselves there was nothing to worry about. There was still plenty of time. "Sure it's only Tuesday," he laughed over his coffee. "Yesterday we said 'sure it's still only Monday'." It's something of an in-house joke.
Today, though, there's a sense of momentum. The political fallout following the murder of Robert McCartney is building. The dead man's sisters are taking a vociferous stand, demanding justice and pointing the finger at violent republicans whom they accuse of intimidating vital witnesses.
Such is the rumpus, the IRA's "P O'Neill" has issued a denial of involvement in the killing and called for no obstruction to be placed in the search for the truth. It's a good story and well suited to the in-depth interview treatment Thompson brings to Hearts and Minds.
All the while, rumour spreads of arrests and seizures of millions in Cork - possibly linked to the Northern Bank raid, possibly linked to the IRA.
"I'll need to ask you something about that, if that's OK," he says to Kelly. But it's a statement, rather than a request, to which the Sinn Féin spokesman replies that he knows little about the developments. He is not alone in that.
By 7.30 p.m., when the programme is aired, the story's pace will have quickened. Hearts and Minds can't go out without reference to it, no matter how scanty.
Thompson's mood and manner are easy and in-control rather than effortlessly laid back. It's a challenge and he obviously enjoys it.
There have been many occasions like this. Hearts and Minds was born after the 1994 ceasefires so, in a sense, the programme's life has run in parallel to the peace process, he tells me. More than 400 editions later, he has experienced the depths and heights of the peace process. Thompson stands by his programme's forensic examination of Northern politics. It's a faith he believes is rewarded by strong viewer figures on both sides of the Border.
"Both sides?" I ask, curious at this gainsaying of the popular notion that Southerners find the North a total switch-off. "Oh yes, particularly in Dublin" he says defiantly. "Sure we're all political junkies." A statement, when said with a grin, you know has to be true.
When we first meet his greeting is as warm as the handshake. Clean-cut, slim and younger-looking than his 49 years, he is vivacious and an engaging conversationalist - a good trait for a political interviewer. He seems remarkably similar off-screen to his TV persona.
He is modest too, even when he refers to the things he is good at. We talk about background, schools and going to university.
"Queen's?" I inquire innocently. "Cambridge - St Catherine's," he informs me gently. "French and German." He reads a lot - not just in English either - and leans more towards non-fiction these days.
He strums a guitar, is learning the piano and sings opera too. He's looking forward to Castleward's opera season in the early summer, which includes both Bizet's Carmen and Mozart's The Magic Flute. "Don't get me wrong," he insists. "I'm more than happy to do my bit in the chorus. I've no desire to take on the professionals."
Individual professionalism is important, though, in front of the camera. "I ask my own questions," he says. "They're always mine." He shrugs the shoulders. "I'm a professional." It's a statement, rather than a boast. Colleagues on his production team privately concur.
One tells me afterwards of the occasion during a "live" transmission of Hearts and Minds, when the studio crew failed to switch his earpiece over to the producer's voice only. Thompson carried on with a 10-minute interview despite the babble from the gallery going on in his ear.
He is enthusiastic about, well, most things: the BBC; Hearts and Minds; and the main early evening news programme, Newsline, which he co-presents.
He loves live television and once did a regular stint on the BBC's Breakfast in London. "I used to finish Newsline at 7 in the evening, then hop on a plane over to London. I'd go to bed early and get up in time for the Breakfast programme. I'd do that, then fly back to Belfast. It was great fun, but I just couldn't keep that going for ever."
It's then you realise that he seems to have life well worked-out. Home and family back in east Belfast are important, too, as well as private.
Back in the studio with Kelly and Maginness, he dissects the Sinn Féin position on criminality and the murder of McCartney as well as the emboldened sense of electoral opportunity now evident in the SDLP.
At one stage, his guests encounter each other directly across the table with Thompson leaning back to let them at it. "I'm happy doing that," he says, safe in the knowledge that he knows when - and how - to get back in.
The interview in the can, he admits to some satisfaction. In the editing room he watches segments of the programme being spliced.
"Now what?" I ask.
"I'll hang around," he says. "There's a big story breaking. Everyone knows it. They might need me for Newsline at 6.30. I'll hang around. Just in case."
Hearts and Minds is on BBC2 Northern Ireland at 8 p.m. on Thursdays (repeated at 11.35 p.m.). Newsline is on BBC1 at 6.30 p.m. on weekdays