Difficult Guest Interview Recovery Planner

A guest goes monosyllabic, wanders off-topic or turns prickly, and you are live with no script for this. This plans a recovery: questions to reopen a closed guest, ways to steer back without it showing, and how to read where you are in the recording. Describe the scenario, the guest type and your hosting style.

Plan a strategy for recovering a podcast interview that is going badly: a guest who is monosyllabic, off-topic, or becoming hostile.

Interview scenario description: {SCENARIO_DESCRIPTION}
Guest type (e.g. academic, CEO, author, activist): {GUEST_TYPE}
Episode topic and audience: {EPISODE_TOPIC_AUDIENCE}
How far into the recording you are: {RECORDING_PROGRESS}
Your hosting style (e.g. conversational, journalistic, supportive): {HOST_STYLE}

Provide: (1) a diagnosis of what is likely causing the difficulty, (2) three redirect questions the host can use immediately, each tailored to the specific scenario, (3) a 'rescue framing' line that re-energises the guest without embarrassing them, (4) a post-production strategy if the interview cannot be saved (clip salvage, bridging narration, reshaping as a solo episode), and (5) a checklist of five pre-interview practices to prevent this scenario in future.