Home / Series / BBC Documentaries / Aired Order / Season 2012 / Episode 42

Frost on Interviews

Television interviews seem to have been around forever - but that's not the case. They evolved in confidence and diversity as television gradually came of age. So how did it all begin? With the help of some of its greatest exponents, Sir David Frost looks back over nearly sixty years of the television interview. He looks at political interviews, from the earliest examples in the post-war period to the forensic questioning that we now take for granted, and celebrity interviews, from the birth of the chat show in the United States with Jack Paar and Johnny Carson to the emergence of our own peak time British performers like Sir Michael Parkinson and Sir David himself. Melvyn Bragg, Joan Bakewell, Tony Benn, Clive Anderson, Ruby Wax, Andrew Neil, Stephen Fry, AA Gill, Alastair Campbell and Michael Parkinson all help trace the development of the television interview. What is its enduring appeal and where does the balance of power actually lie - with the interviewer or the interviewee?

English
  • Originally Aired March 13, 2012
  • Runtime 60 minutes
  • Content Rating United States of America TV-PG
  • Production Code b01dc5ft
  • Network BBC
  • Created March 14, 2012 by
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  • Modified March 14, 2012 by
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