Face to Face (TV series)

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Face To Face was a live 35 episode BBC British television series broadcast between 1959 and 1962. The insightful and often probing style of the interviewer, former politician John Freeman, distinguished it from other programmes of its genre. The camera angles and shots were also distinctive, with Freeman out of shot and the camera always on the subject, sometimes concentrating on a nervously smoked cigarette or a close-up of a face. The theme music was an excerpt from the overture to Berlioz' opera Les Francs-juges. The titles for each episode featured caricatures of that week's subject by Feliks Topolski.

Guests included Tony Hancock and Gilbert Harding, both of whom seemed disturbed by the questioning, but both of whom later endorsed Freeman's interview style.

Revived in 1989 with Jeremy Isaacs as its host, the questioner attempted to mimic the style of his predecessor with a similar interview technique. However most of this later series's subjects were more familiar with the medium than the earlier guests, so it was quite difficult to catch them off guard. Some of these interviews were featured as part of the arts series The Late Show. Running until 1998, the revival actually had a longer overall run than the original.

Episodes of the original Face to Face were shown frequently on BBC Knowledge and still turn up occasionally on BBC Four, especially during seasons such as The Lost Decade in October 2005. 29 of the original 35 episodes have been repeated, the exceptions being; Nubar Gulbenkian, Roy Welensky, Stirling Moss, General Von Senger, Victor Gollancz and Danny Blanchflower, indicating that no copies survive of these six editions.

Of all the interviewees, only Adam Faith appeared in both series.

Contents

[edit] Incomplete list of Subjects

[edit] Original Series (1959-1962)

[edit] Revival (1989-1998)

[edit] Further reading

  • A book of the same name was published in 1964 with portraits by Felix Topolski.
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