Face to Face — Season 4

Aired 21 March 1989 • 30 min

In the first of an occasional series of revivals of the classic television interview, Anthony Burgess talks to Jeremy Isaacs. Stirred into writing by the prospect of fatal illness, Anthony Burgess is now regarded as one of the world's most celebrated writers. His novels include A Clockwork Orange, Earthly Powers and his latest, Any Old Iron. The first volume of his autobiography Little Wilson and Big God has been widely recognised as a contemporary masterpiece. Long resident outside Britain, Burgess talks about his life and art - and his attitude to the country of his birth.

Aired 5 April 1989

At the age of 70, Cunningham is perhaps the world's best-known choreographer of modern dance. Since 1953, when he founded his own company, he has been at the forefront of modern experimentation. Cunningham talks about the motivation behind his unflagging creative energy, and his collaborations with artists such as John Cage , Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.

Aired 16 May 1989

In the revival of a classic television interview format, Jeremy Isaacs talks to playwright and film director David Hare. From Knuckle to Licking Hitler and Plenty, Hare's work has explored the morality of public and private life in post-war Britain. His current National Theatre play A Secret Rapture and two new films soon to be released, Paris By Night and Strapless, extend these themes of public and personal morality into the Thatcher era.

Aired 31 May 1989

In a revival of the classic television format, Jeremy Isaacs interviews George Steiner, one of Europe's most eloquent intellectuals.

Aired 7 November 1989 • 30 min

The author of Empire of the Sun and Crash discusses the realities he has created through his work and their interaction with the events of his own life. Ballard talks honestly about the attraction of dark and violent things and the light that these extreme moments can shed on the truth of the human condition. He also explores his early desire to be a psychiatrist and the way in which his interest in the workings of the mind has carried through into the fiction he produces.

Aired 24 January 1990 • 29 min

Jeremy Isaacs talks to American neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. In this interview he describes how he has turned the case history into literature.

Aired 24 May 1990 • 40 min

Jeremy Isaacs comes face to face with Roger Corman , maker of over 200 'B' movies with titles like Gods of Shark Reef and The Man with the X-ray Eyes. Current Hollywood talents such as Scorsese, Coppola, De Niro and Nicholson all made their debuts with Corman, and his instinct for the tacky and absurd in American life has earned him cult status among critics.

Aired 16 October 1990 • 38 min

Jeremy Isaacs comes Face to Face with one of the world's most influential and controversial psychologists, Professor Hans Eysenck.

Aired 17 June 1991

David Attenborough, television presenter and pioneer of natural history programmes, is Face to Face with Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 18 June 1991

American choreographer Merce Cunningham is Face to Face with Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 19 June 1991

American gay writer Edmund White is Face to Face with Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 20 June 1991

Writer and intellectual George Steiner is Face to Face with Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 22 September 1993

Jeremy Isaacs talks to one of the great figures of contemporary British theatre.

Aired 28 October 1993

Novelist Martin Amis, author of Money and London Fields, comes face to face with Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 10 November 1993

Painter David Hockney talks to Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 13 December 1993

Hollywood actor Kirk Douglas, star of Spartacus and Lust for Life, comes face to face with Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 31 January 1994

One of the most successful film directors of all time, Steven Spielberg, talks about his career with Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 28 February 1994

For decades Billy Connolly has been one of Britain's most popular comedians. Tonight he talks to Jeremy Isaacs about stand-up comedy, bodily functions and the night someone set fire to his hair.

Aired 16 May 1994

A rare television interview with one of Britain's greatest writers, V.S. Naipaul. Best known for his novels A House for Mr Biswas, A Bend in the River (winner of the Booker Prize), and The Enigma of Arrival, he talks with Jeremy Isaacs about his life and work.

Aired 6 June 1994

he black American writer Maya Angelou won international acclaim with the publication of the first volume of her autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", an eloquent memoir of a tragic childhood in the deep south. Raped by her mother's boy-friend at 8, she became mute for five years. Despite these harrowing accounts, her writing is full of hope, providing inspiration for a whole generation. Jeremy Isaacs asks Maya Angelou about her life, writing, and her hopes for the future.

Aired 28 June 1994

Jeremy Isaacs talks to award-winning writer Jeanette Winterson, who discusses her love of writing and reflects on the ways in which her upbringing and sexuality have influenced her work. Winterson also explains her desire to avoid being categorised, either in terms of her work or her life, and the ways in which her non-conformist style of writing and 'taboo' subject matter reflect this and have, perhaps, contributed to her success.

Aired 19 September 1994

Jeremy Isaacs comes Face to Face with Ken Loach, one of Britain's best known and most provocative film-makers, who talks about his new film Ladybird Ladybird.

Aired 20 September 1994

Novelist Salman Rushdie talks to Jeremy Isaacs.

Aired 9 January 1995

In his occasional interview series for The Late Show, Jeremy Isaacs meets US beat generation poet Allen Ginsberg , who describes his working and personal relationships with literary figures such as William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac , and the effect drug-taking has had on his work.

Aired 13 February 1995

Jeremy Isaacs interviews American playwright Arthur Miller, as his latest play Broken Glass transfers to London's West End and A View from the Bridge begins a national tour.

Aired 13 March 1995

Knotty Ash 's most famous son, comedian Ken Dodd , talks to Jeremy Isaacs about his career and his analytical approach to comedy. See today's choices.

Aired 20 March 1995

First transmitted in 1995, Jeremy Isaacs delves into the life of Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall, who became a movie star instantly following her first screen appearances in To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep. Born as Betty Perske, she went on to marry Humphrey Bogart and enjoyed a 50-year career under her new name, Lauren Bacall. They discuss her film career, autobiographies and her impending return to the British stage.

Aired 18 September 1995

In tonight's first in a new series of in-depth interviews, Jeremy Isaacs comes face to face with Oscar-winning actor Anthony Hopkins.

Aired 2 October 1995

John Berger, author of A Seventh Man and Ways of Seeing, faces questions from Jeremy Isaacs about his life and career. He talks about his 'European voice' and his appeal across a continent that he considers to be 'in flux'. He speaks affectionately about his mother, a former suffragette who had always wanted her child to be a writer, and his father, 'a man so marked by that terrible First World War'.

Aired 9 October 1995

Jeremy Isaacs talks to composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim about his work - which includes West Side Story, Follies and Sweeney Todd - his views and his life.

Aired 16 October 1995

Jeremy Isaacs talks to Martha Gellhorn, journalist, novelist and one of the great war correspondents of the century.

Aired 23 October 1995

Jeremy Isaacs talks to Norman Mailer, one of America's leading novel and non-fiction writers, whose personal life, as well as his work, has often kept him in the public eye.

Aired 30 October 1995

Jeremy Isaacs talks to actor Paul Eddington about his eminent career in both television and the theatre, and his battle against skin cancer.

Aired 6 November 1995

Jeremy Isaacs talks to feminist writer Germaine Greer. Last in the series.