David Frost Vs, review: a welcome reminder of a brilliant interviewer
Last month Mike Parkinson brought his chat show legend father, Michael, back to life via artificial intelligence and a highly dubious podcast. This month, Wilfred Frost brings his chat show legend father, David, back to life via more conventional means – the prestige documentary series. Both sons were gifted an immense body of work to preserve and curate. Parkinson Jr would no doubt agree that David Frost Vs (Sky Documentaries) is the more palatable and successful way to present it.
The six-part series (three now, three later in the year) isn't always wholly successful, but when it is, as in its completely spellbinding second episode, it is mighty documentary-making, both cerebral and emotional. Each episode takes a new subject through which we can view Frost, America and Britain, and the world at large during the 1960s and 1970s. First up is The Beatles, then Muhammad Ali, and finishing this three-part run with Jane Fonda.
To be reminded of Frost's brilliance as an interviewer (and as the maker of television) is no bad thing, and the copious clips from The David Frost Show et al are wondrous enough to scarcely need a documentary around them at all. At times I longed to just watch him at work – questing, respectful, louche – without interruption. Charting John Lennon's life and career via his interviews with Frost was refreshing, though at times you wondered if the director had forgotten that the programme was supposed to be about Frost. The episode on Fonda is an illuminating take on America and the Vietnam War, but at times it reduced Frost to a keen observer, and little more.
The episode on Ali, however, achieves the series' ambitious aim of marrying form and substance, interviewer and interviewee. The intellectual tussle of Frost and Ali's first televised interview in 1968 is remarkable (at one point Frost accepts dead air to allow Ali to get his notes), with Frost pressing the Nation of Islam convert's claim that 'all whites are devils' (this concept ran through their many encounters and received an extraordinary coup de grace in their final interview in 2003). There is mutual respect – dare I say it, even something like love – but Frost is never on the back foot.
Yet the episode is also about Black America and the civil rights movement, and its finest moment comes in an interview with Jesse Owens, not Ali. Frost is visibly overcome by the eloquence and grace of Owens, and at one point can only mutter, 'You really are terrific. And what you say is terrific'. If you've never fully appreciated Frost's power as an interviewer, or if time has faded the memory, this series is a captivating reminder. He was the master. Frost floated like a butterfly, stung like a bee.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scottish Sun
a day ago
- Scottish Sun
Hollyoaks star Ali Bastian reveals heartbreaking moment she was cruelly mum-shamed by another actress while on a job
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) HOLLYOAKS actress Ali Bastian has opened up about the time she was cruelly mum-shamed by a fellow actress whilst at work. The star, who played Becca Dean in the Channel 4 soap between 2001 and 2007, admitted a fellow mum made a thinly-veiled dig at her after she revealed she was still breastfeeding her child at 18 months old. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 4 Ali Bastian reveals she was mum-shamed by a co-star Credit: Getty 4 Ali took to Instagram to share her experience with mum-shaming Ali, 43, who has been open about her recent cancer battle, took to Instagram to share her story in which she admitted she felt shamed for her choices with her child. Speaking to the camera, the actress said: "I went on a job and it was the first time that I'd been away from Isla [her daughter]. "She was a really allergic baby - we'd had about seven blue light runs with her. "It had been a real nightmare. "I'd breast-fed her for about two and a half years but in the middle of that, I got a job for a couple of days of filming. "I decided to do it and I got talking to a slightly older actress and I said, 'it's the first time away from my baby'. "She asked how old was my baby and I think I said, 'oh 18 months', and she was like, 'oh...' "I said to her I'm still breastfeeding so I'm pumping and everything and she was like, 'oh, you are not going to be one of those mums, are you?'." Reacting with a shocked look, Ali continued: "Me being me, I just froze and I didn't say anything!" Ali did not name the actress that she was referring too. Hollyoaks star Ali Bastian shares emotional update as she recovers from her gruelling cancer treatment The popular star has had a difficult twleve months following her breast cancer battle. was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer in June 2024, and underwent a mastectomy in January before getting the all clear two months later. Now, the Strictly star - who has inspired fans with her candid and powerful updates about her treatment journey - has opened up about the next steps in her recovery and revealed she is still weighing up reconstruction surgery. In a new interview with Giovanna Fletcher on the Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast, she explains how she is now turning her attention to removing a tumour the size of a "tennis ball" that developed after the birth of her daughter, Isla, five years ago. Ali has two daughters Isla, five, and Isabella, two, with husband David O'Mahony. She was diagnosed with cancer after discovering a lump she initially thought was a blocked milk duct while breastfeeding her youngest daughter. 4 The star told of her shock at her co-star's comments Credit: Instagram
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Race Across The World: I could win Race Across The World's £20,000 first prize - and here's how
Why not just hire a car? The rules of Race Across The World prohibit air travel, but taxis and hitch-hiking are fair game . . . so there can't be anything wrong with renting your own wheels. As contestants neared the finish line at India 's southern tip, after a trek via train, bus and tuktuk from the Great Wall of China, all of them had cash to spare. Budgets have been tighter than ever before on this series but, despite that, every one of the four couples had enough money to go by cab on the final leg. It's taken them 51 days to cover 8,700 miles, which is an average of 170 miles a day. Driving a rental, they could easily have covered the distance in half the time. And if a hire car was too expensive, why not buy a motorbike? It's just the devious way my mind works, but surely there must be a shortcut to victory. When the race was set in Canada two years ago, several pairs of competitors cadged lifts with obliging Canucks. I'd be inclined to find an amateur chauffeur and offer him a bribe: get me to the final checkpoint ahead of the pack, and you can have a quarter of the £20,000 prize money. It's an expensive way to win — but losing is more expensive. Muscle rub of the week When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, we learned on Flight 149: Hostage Of War (Sky Documentaries), President George Bush was in the White House, getting a massage. That's what you call lying down on the job. None of the five duos was prepared to cheat, of course, because the real winners on this show are the ones who forge tighter bonds with each other along the way. The race's producers have done an exceptional job of picking the right participants: all of them have been likeable and interesting, and every couple has grown closer week by week. Both sets of siblings, Elizabeth and Letitia, and Brian and Melvyn, barely knew each other at the start of the trip. Thank goodness that, as it turned out, they discovered they genuinely liked each other. Might have been awkward if the adventure had simply served to remind them why they drifted apart in the first place. We've all been hoping that young lovers Fin and Sioned would get wed along the way. Sioned certainly was. When she and her boyfriend were presented with garlands at a flower market in Bengaluru, she told him hopefully, 'We can get married now.' The most touching relationship has been that of the eventual winners, mother-and-son Caroline and Tom. She obviously adores him, and he's learned to show his appreciation, finding the words to thank her in a sweet diary entry. Still, she's sensible to be wary of him first thing in the morning. Her tactic at home, she said, is to take him a cup of tea in bed and a bacon butty — and then run. Millions of parents will sympathise. It was the show's bad luck, though, that the most intriguing couple, divorcees Yin and Gaz, were eliminated halfway through the series. What would it take to bring those two back together — maybe a stint in the jungle on I'm A Celebrity next?
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Telegraph
John Lennon's ‘smutty' love letter to future wife revealed
A 'smutty' love letter by John Lennon to his future wife – including his complaints about Paul McCartney's snoring – has emerged 63 years on. The Beatle, then aged just 21, wrote to art student Cynthia Powell telling her how much he missed her while the band were in the middle of their Hamburg stint in April 1962. The letter, written over five nights of concerts in the city, touched on various themes, including the sudden death of former bandmate Stuart Sutcliffe the week earlier. The note also featured an amusing moan from Lennon about McCartney's 'snoring' in the bunk bed above his. In the letter, signed by Lennon and written between April 19-24 1962, he wrote: 'Paul's leaping about on my head (he's in a bunk on top of me and he's snoring) ... Shurrup Mcarntey [sic]!' The musician then confides in Powell that he had avoided Astrid Kirchherr, Sutcliffe's German fiancee, because 'I would be so awkward'. He then shot down Cynthia's plan to move in with Dot Rhone, McCartney's girlfriend, as it would have caused a lack of privacy when he and Powell were in bed together. 'Sunday papers and chocies' The letter said: 'I love love love you and I'm missing you like mad ... I wish I was on the way to your flat with the Sunday papers and chocies [sic] and a throbber.' 'I wonder why all the newspapers wrote about Stu … I haven't seen Astrid since the day we arrived. I've thought of going to see her but I would be so awkward.' It went on: 'I don't like the idea of Dot moving in permanently with you cause we would never be alone really ... imagine having her there all the time when we were in bed – and imagine Paul coming all the time. '...I love you, please wait for me and don't be sad and work hard, be a clever little Cyn Powell.' John and Cynthia, who was a year older than him, had been in a relationship for four years, having met at Liverpool College of Art. They married in August 1962 and had their son Julian in April 1963, weeks after 'Beatlemania' exploded with the release of the band's chart-topping first album Please Please Me. The pair divorced in 1968 and Powell later claimed Lennon had physically abused her throughout their relationship, including slapping her face in a fit of jealousy. The handwritten letter, described as one of the finest ever written by the singer, was sold by Powell to a Swedish collector in 1991 after she fell on hard times and needed to raise money. It then changed hands to the Swedish vendor in 1993. It will be on sale at Christie's auction with a £30,000 to £40,000 estimate. Thomas Venning, the head of books and manuscripts at Christie's, said: 'Reading the letter you get the sense of two young people in love, with no idea of what was going to happen to them, which makes it really compelling and historical. 'They are very unfiltered and you can hear him using his own voice. 'There are some smutty and funny bits and you sense his personality on the page, unlike his later letters which are more guarded and preachy. 'It provides an early insight into the Beatles from their time in Hamburg which was so important to their development as a band.' The sale takes place on July 9.
