Richard HEARNE (1908-1979)

Richard Hearne This Is Your Life

programme details...

  • Edition No: 107
  • Subject No: 107
  • Broadcast live: Mon 26 Oct 1959
  • Broadcast time: 7.30-8.05pm
  • Venue: BBC Television Theatre
  • Series: 5
  • Edition: 9

on the guest list...

  • Gene Ginnett
  • Babs Zola
  • Philip Garrood
  • Sidney Higgins
  • Ella Retford
  • Jack Hill
  • Stanley French
  • Benita Lydal
  • Yvonne - wife
  • Sarah - daughter
  • Cetra - daughter
  • Betty Heritage
  • Sally Chipperfield
  • John Chipperfield
  • Filmed tributes:
  • Fay Compton
  • Maureen Allen

production team...

  • Researcher: Nickola Sterne
  • Writer: Nickola Sterne
  • Director: unknown
  • Producer: T Leslie Jackson
  • names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
related pages...

It's a Funny Old Life

it's all about the comedy


This Is Your Life

Radio Times marks the 200th edition

Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life Richard Hearne This Is Your Life

Photographs and screenshots of Richard Hearne This Is Your Life

The Manchester Guardian article

The Guardian 27 October 1959


"Mr Pastry" and Panorama


By our Television Critic


The British television public must have the liking for routine that the listening public has always shown.


Once a pattern has been established, the BBC can keep on keeping it up for years.


One can well imagine, for instance, that in ten years time we shall still be watching This Is Your Life and Panorama on a Monday evening.


This Is Your Life still disturbs me because of the embarrassment sometimes so evident in the subject brought on to the stage by trickery of one kind or another: also by its wallowing in sentiment and flattery.


Actors and actresses and show business people in general can put a better face on it than others, since they are accustomed to the limelight, and some people clearly enjoy the whole business. But even when they are used to an audience, they can appear distressed, and Richard Hearne (Mr Pastry) last night was not always happy.


He appeared genuinely annoyed and disturbed at being brought there by a stratagem, and not unnaturally dismayed at the use made of his work for spastics and polio-stricken children to make a public entertainment. Not all of the people brought in to greet him were word perfect or easy in their appointed parts, and there were some sticky moments in a programme redeemed by his own charm and shyness.

Series 5 subjects

Evelyn Laye | Donald Caskie | Eva Turner | Billy Butlin | James Slater | Edmund Arbuthnott | Louis Langford | O P Jones
Richard Hearne | Francoise Rigby | John Barclay | Thomas Drake | William Merrilees | John Lord | Russ Conway | Stanley Bishop
Leonard Stanmore | Arthur Askey | Robert Oldfield | Alicia Markova | Frederic Morena | Hilda Rowcliffe | Thomas Salmon
Harry Welchman | Harry Webb | Nat Gonella | David Barclay | Richard Todd | Thomas Bodkin | Gracie Fields | Michael Ansell