Face to Face episodes then appeared, irregularly, through 1959. The first Face to Face programme featured Lord Birkett, an advocate and a judge who had been involved in the Nuremberg trials it had an audience of four million and a 'reaction index' (approval rating) of 83%. Freeman had been a reporter on BBC TV's Panorama since 1957, and had also appeared as an interviewer on Press Conference. Burnett decided on John Freeman as the interviewer 'because he was highly skilled at probing closely without causing offence' he asked Freeman while walking around the BBC block at Lime Grove Studios, and Freeman agreed by the second lap. It took two years to persuade Grace Wyndham Goldie (assistant head of talks television) to commission a programme. Face to Face was revived in 1989 with Jeremy Isaacs as the interviewer and ran until 1998.īBC talks producer Hugh Burnett had the idea of a simple personal interview programme in the mid-1950s.

The insightful and often probing style of the interviewer, former politician John Freeman, separated it from other programmes of the time. Face to Face was a BBC interview television programme originally broadcast between 19, created and produced by Hugh Burnett, which ran for 35 episodes.