Max North's Week-end Teleview

THERE will be a couple of hundred uneasy people sitting awkwardly in their seats tomorrow night in a television studio. They, along with 10M other viewers, will be waiting for the latest perpetration of Messrs. Fayne and Maltravers.

A new programme? No - that's the disguise adopted by producer Leslie Jackson, the man who has been in deep conspiracy with his team and Eamonn Andrews for the latest This Is Your Life.

By now the trap is well baited. For the past fortnight the team plotters have been preparing a dossier on an unsuspecting person - at least that's their hope at Messrs. Fayne and Maltravers.

Everything is ready for Eamonn Andrews to walk forward with the black book and proclaim the sentence: This Is Your Life.

Five celebrities have been invited "for an evening's entertainment" and tickets have been sent to the studio audiences.

"And our subject could be any one of those in the audience as some of the best programmes have been on little-known people," remind Jackson - just in case you have a ticket.

Sunday's will be the 14th edition, and in that time 46 year-old Leslie Jackson, the former Manchester actor, has learned a lot about "secret service" for the BBC.

Besides this show he has to look after security arrangements for his other programme, What's My Line?

IT looks as if he will be in the cloak-and-dagger business for some time to come. What's My Line? still basks in popularity and This Is Your Life has won a lot of support since it has established itself.

"But perhaps the most annoyed viewer was the man who read early in the series that he was going to see a programme called This Is Your Life. He took it literally and tuned in to see his life," says Jackson, who wrote a very patient letter in reply.

Secrecy is all-important to the show, and the promoter realised that they would need tighter security measures when the identity of their first subject was revealed just as all plans had been made. They switched to Eamonn Andrews at the last minute.

SINCE then they have not had a slip-up. But look what steps have been taken. Jackson and his team had to move out of Lime Grove, to get away from the busybodies.

"People kept popping into the office when we were on long-distance calls - and for a man who daren't let his right hand know what his left is up to, this was impossible."

They have found a quiet office elsewhere in Shepherd's Bush and put up the sign "Fayne and Maltravers," and Jackson works behind the name Harkness J. Brubaker on his desk.

The door isn't locked. "People just look at our stern faces and leave. At first the woman in the next office used to come in for tea. She doesn't come any more."

"One last word. Please don't call the people who appear 'victims' - they are 'subjects.' You can't call a man who got a free trip to Italy as a result of the show a victim," he told me.

This Is Your Life - Article: Now What's Mr Jackson Got Up His Sleeve