That's Life!

That's Life! was a magazine-style television series on BBC1 between 26 May 1973 and 19 June 1994, presented by Esther Rantzen throughout the entire run, with various changes of co-presenters. The show was generally recorded about an hour prior to transmission, which was originally on Saturday nights for many years and then on Sunday nights. In its latter days, in an attempt to win back falling ratings, it was moved back to Saturday nights.

Format

The original purpose of the programme was consumer protection, particularly safety issues. The importance of wearing seat belts, for example, was illustrated before attitudes supporting their use became widespread. Britain's telephone helpline for children, ChildLine, was developed by Rantzen following items on the programme. Awareness for the need for child organ transplants was increased through the 1985 death of Ben Hardwick, a toddler whose liver disease was followed by the show. In tribute, Marti Webb released a version of Michael Jackson's "Ben".

The programme also featured less serious items, which over time grew in number. These included the 'Jobsworth,' exposing companies and authorities who had implemented obscure regulations and policies causing more grievances than they aimed to correct. In another feature, 'Heap of the Week', viewers would write in regarding annoying unreliable domestic appliances and other failed items, which would then be disposed of in destructive ways to the delight of their owners. A regular feature as the final item of each show, particularly in the 1980s and '90s, was various members of the team disguised as various people or things in locations such as supermarkets and garden centres, suddenly breaking into song and grabbing passers by and getting them to join in. Some of the more light-hearted features tapped into the British seaside postcard-style humour, being cheeky and suggestive but never out-and-out rude.

The co-presenters added extra personality to the show and other presenters contributed humour by reading cuttings sent in by viewers or by singing. The first of these contributors was the songwriter and lyricist Richard Stilgoe; for the show he wrote comic songs satirising various domestic issues, such as a song to celebrate the date 25 years into the future when he would have at last paid off the mortgage to his house. The co-hosts of the show were always men, though several women were featured as the 'humour' contributors, including actresses Joanna Monro and Mollie Sugden. In later shows the co-hosts would dramatise cases by each reading the dialogue of a 'character.' This resulted in hilarity during less-serious cases when they attempted to imitate foreign accents; Adrian Mills was famously unable to perform in a Spanish accent in an undercover item looking at a crooked money-making scam.

The show was also infamous for showcasing unusually-shaped vegetables, "odd odes" (humorous poems), comical newspaper and advertisement typographical errors, performing pets (memorably, a dog able to "say" "sausages" and "Esther"), and street interviews with members of the public, including an eager old lady called Annie Mizen who became a regular on the show after she was discovered at a street market.

An early regular contributor was poet Pam Ayres. Later there were also musical interludes from performers such as Jake Thackray, Victoria Wood, Doc Cox, and occasionally Grant Baynham. Baynham had buckets of water thrown over him in several live programmes after Rantzen had apparently objected to him smoking, much to his considerable chagrin; on his final show, he got his own back by doing the same to Esther.

Presenters often left the confines of the studio for various stunts; Esther was arrested during one vox pop for apparently obstructing the pavement. The incident was broadcast in its entirety, along with Esther being driven away in a police van and the crowd's humorously cheering her arrest.

In 1993, taxi driver Tom Morton, who knew over 16,000 telephone numbers in Lancashire, beat the British Olympia Telephone Exchange computer with his recall. The interviewer, Adrian Mills, said he had never seen anything like it.^[1]

A cartoon strip, drawn by Rod Jordon, featuring items from that edition accompanied the closing credits.

The award-winning documentary film maker Adam Curtis, who went on to make The Power of Nightmares and The Century of the Self, started his career on the show. According to The Observer he "found dogs that could sing and researched investigative segments. Along the way he learned a lot about comic timing and the ways an audience might be engaged by issues. 'The best lesson that Esther taught me was that people who think they are funny rarely are'".^[2]

The show was a staple of the post-watershed Sunday night BBC 1 schedules for many years (having originally been broadcast on Saturday nights) and, despite its criticisms (see below section), pulled in very high viewing figures, becoming somewhat of a minor national institution in its heyday. However, by the 1990s, times had changed. There were by now other, more hard-hitting consumer investigation programmes being broadcast (such as ITV's The Cook Report and the BBC's own Watchdog, and several others), and the always slightly uneasy mix of hard-hitting and comical articles of the show was by now seen by many as very awkward and somewhat dated. In 1992, to try and win back straying viewers, the show was moved from its traditional haunt of Sunday nights, back to Saturdays. There was also a radical revamp of the set (bringing the co-presenters out from behind their desk, and several other tweaks to both the appearance and format of the show), but the move did not fully rejuvenate the programme as was hoped. The show was generally felt to have run its course, belonging to an era which had now passed. It was finally dropped in 1994, but was given a decent send-off.

The very last edition was named That's Life All Over, and was predominantly a highlight show. Esther had been deliberately given a false finish time, and when she expected the programme to close, she was surprised that a whole extra section of the programme was introduced looking at the work she had done over the years.

Origins

The BBC conceived the programme as a replacement for the remarkably similar Braden's Week, hosted by Bernard Braden between 1968 and 1972.^[3] Rantzen was a reporter on this show, while her future husband, Desmond Wilcox, was an editor. Braden was dismissed when he appeared in an advert on ITV, breaking his contract terms, leading to the introduction of That's Life! a year later.

However, although Braden himself was publicly circumspect about the decision, his wife Barbara Kelly (also a TV presenter) was forthright in condemning it and was plainly hostile towards Rantzen.^[4]

Almost thirty years later Kelly told Alice Pitman of The Oldie that she was "very bitter at the time, very, very bitter" and recalled that Braden's producer, Desmond Wilcox, who subsequently married Rantzen, had brought together Kelly, Rantzen and newsreader Angela Rippon for a pilot of an afternoon show, although, in Kelly's view, "it was just a front - he wanted Esther, and Angela and I were sort of left dangling."^[5] At the turn of the 21st century Kelly weighed into a spat in the press between Rantzen and her stepdaughter Cassandra Wilcox, as a result of which she received a large number of supportive letters from members of the public who recalled her husband's usurpation by Rantzen. Kelly placed these in a folder marked "Hate Rancid File".^[5]

The ITV sketch show End of Part One in 1979, scripted by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, created a spoof of That's Life! entitled "That's Bernard Braden's Show Really".

In 1980, a spin-off show Junior That's Life! ran for one season on BBC1, on early Saturday evenings. Hosted by Rantzen with Paul Heiney & Chris Serle, the items were aimed at children, with two boys – one of whom was future BBC journalist Shaun Ley – reading out the humorous items in place of Cyril Fletcher.

Criticisms

Throughout the show's life, there was criticism of the format of the typical edition moving abruptly from a deeply serious issue to a comical one (such as the infamous rudely shaped vegetables) and back again. This was always defended by Esther and the crew, who said that the aim was to represent the full spectrum of life, from the sad to the funny, and always tried to end editions on an uplifting, light-hearted and/or humorous item.

Over time the programme increasingly concentrated on sentimental, light and humorous items - particularly after being taken to court by a doctor it tried to discredit and landing the BBC with huge litigation costs (estimated at £1.2 million in a Guardian article ^{[citation needed]}) - and featured and appealed to senior citizens. The public hence became increasingly polarised between those who loved the programme, and those who loathed both it and its presenter Esther Rantzen. The latter camp included Victor Lewis-Smith, who in addition to sketches and spoof songs featured on his Radio 1 show, made some hoax phone calls to the programme, sometimes referring to Rantzen as 'Teeth' after her most prominent feature.

Reporters/Co-Presenters

• Grant Baynham (1986–1989)
• Bill Buckley (1982–1985)
• Gavin Campbell (1982–1994)
• Kevin Devine (1991–1994)
• Michael Groth
• Paul Heiney (1979–1981)
• George Layton 1973
• Howard Leader (1990–1994)
• Adrian Mills (1985–1994)
• Kieran Prendiville (1973–1978)
• Chris Serle (1979–1981)
• Scott Sherrin
• Bob Wellings 1973
• Glyn Worsnip (1973–1979)

Humour contributors

• Maev Alexander
• Pam Ayres
• Tommy Boyd
• Doc Cox (1982–1992)
• Simon Fanshawe
• Cyril Fletcher (1973–1981)
• John Gould
• Joanna Monro (1982–1984)
• Mollie Sugden (1986)

Musical guests

• Catharine Howe
• Lynsey de Paul
• Richard Stilgoe
• Jake Thackray
• Victoria Wood (1976–1979)

In the first three years the show started and finished with the "That's Life" theme sung a resident singer, either Cheryl Kennedy, Stephanie de Sykes, Judith Bruce or Lois Lane. They were accompanied by Tony Kinsey's band. However, the singers were dropped from the title sequence, and instead there was a topical song in the same manner as Millicent Martin on That Was the Week That Was. Eventually the topical song was dropped from the show.

Transmission Guide

• Series 1: 13 editions from 26 May 1973 - 18 August 1973
• Series 2: 19 editions from 16 March 1974 - 17 August 1974
• Series 3: 19 editions from 29 March 1975 - 23 August 1975
• Series 4: 20 editions from 4 January 1976 - 23 May 1976
• Series 5: 19 editions from 2 January 1977 - 28 May 1977
• Series 6: 12 editions from 7 May 1978 - 23 July 1978
• Series 7: 21 editions from 7 January 1979 - 17 June 1979
• Series 8: 26 editions from 4 January 1981 - 12 July 1981
• Series 9: 14 editions from 5 September 1982 - 12 December 1982
• Series 10: 12 editions from 10 April 1983 - 26 June 1983
• Series 11: 24 editions from 8 January 1984 - 15 July 1984
• Series 12: 24 editions from 6 January 1985 - 7 July 1985
• Series 13: 22 editions from 19 January 1986 - 6 July 1986
• Series 14: 22 editions from 11 January 1987 - 5 July 1987
• Series 15: 22 editions from 17 January 1988 - 3 July 1988
• Series 16: 19 editions from 22 January 1989 - 25 June 1989
• Series 17: 23 editions from 14 January 1990 - 1 July 1990
• Series 18: 20 editions from 20 January 1991- 30 June 1991
• Series 19: 22 editions from 11 January 1992 - 11 July 1992
• Series 20: 20 editions from 23 January 1993 - 3 July 1993
• Series 21: 19 editions from 15 January 1994 - 11 June 1994

Specials

• That's Life 1974: 28 December 1974
• That's Life Superpets: 24 December 1977
• Junior That's Life: Series 1: 6 editions from 1 September 1979 - 5 October 1979
• That's Life Report: editions from 22 May 1980 - 19 June 1980
• Best of That's Life: 5 August 1981
• That's Life: Having a Baby: 2 editions: 18 March 1982
• Best of That's Life: 23 August 1983
• Summer 1984 Compilation: 28 August 1984
• That's Family Life: Series 1: 6 editions from 16–20 November 1984
• Best of That's Life 1985: 30 August 1985
• Holiday Edition Compilation 1986: 24 August 1986
• Best of 1987: 9 August 1987
• The Gift of Life: 10 January 1988
• Best of 1988: 28 August 1988
• Britain's Most Talented Pets: 2 January 1989
• Best of 1989: 28 August 1989
• Talented Pets: 1 January 1990
• Holiday Special Compilation : 27 August 1990
• Talented Pets 3: 31 December 1990
• The Scandal of Crookham Court: 13 January 1991
• Summer Special Compilation : 26 August 1991
• Talented Pets 4: 31 December 1991
• Summer Special Compilation: 20 August 1992
• Summer Special Compilation: 29 August 1993
• Fire! Special Report: 8 January 1994
• It's All Over: Final edition: 19 June 1994

References

External links

• That's Life! at the Internet Movie Database