About this season
Face To Face is a BBC television series originally broadcast between 1959 and 1962, created and produced by Hugh Burnett, which ran for 35 episodes. The insightful and often probing style of the interviewer, former politician John Freeman, separated it from other programmes of the time. The series was revived in 1989 with Jeremy Isaacs as the interviewer. This version ran until 1998.
Episodes (7)
1. Gilbert Harding
Aired 18 September 1960 • 30 min
Arguably the most famous episode of the series, as Gilbert Harding verges on breaking down under John Freeman's questioning. "I shall be very glad to be dead" remains a poignant response - Harding died less than two months after broadcast.
2. General von Senger und Etterlin
Aired 2 October 1960 • 30 min
Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin discusses his role in the second World War, including whether he was ever accused of war crimes, and whether he was given any orders he felt were unacceptable.
3. Lord Reith
Aired 30 October 1960 • 30 min
John Freeman talks to a former director-general of his own employer, as ex-BBC head Lord John Reith discusses his early life and time with the corporation. Debated among the two is the value of the BBC in Reith's time, and in the present.
4. Simone Signoret
Aired 13 November 1960 • 30 min
John Freeman and Simone Signoret play a verbal game of cat and mouse, as he wants to know "the woman behind the actor's mask." However, Simone is deliberate in what she reveals, answering one question with "I think that's my own business."
5. Victor Gollancz
Aired 27 November 1960 • 30 min
6. Adam Faith
Aired 11 December 1960 • 30 min
45-year-old John Freeman admits that he's been "consulting some teenage friends of mine" as he interviews his first pop star, Adam Faith. Faith talks about the difference between his showbusiness persona and his real self, Terry Nelhams.
7. Otto Klemperer
Aired 8 January 1961 • 30 min