This Is Your Life article

Tonight This Is Your Life will be televised for the ninety-first time since the series began in this country. [Bigredbook.info editor: it seems Radio Times is including the two end of series specials in this calculation! The edition referred to here is that of Hugh Llewellyn Glyn Hughes - subject number 89!]

But it is the period between 7.25pm and 7.30pm – the five minutes which seem like years and which make those who work on the programme grow old before their time – which will be the tensest of all for us. For it is during this little eternity that our great weekly riddle will be solved. Will the subject be where we want him at the time we want him there? As each week's show finishes, the problems for the next mount up. Each week it all gets a little harder, and after ninety-one additions to the difficulties of the 'cover story' problem, you can imagine just how complicated it gets!

Take the time we went to Wales just before Christmas. The programme was being televised from Cardiff. Our subject lived in Llanelli, and we had invited him to Cardiff for a supposed interview programme. The last train to Cardiff left in the early afternoon. Our subject virtually tumbled into that train as it pulled out from the platform. That night This Is Your Life was within thirty seconds of disaster!

Then there was the occasion the subject was to be in a pub near the theatre at a certain time, having a drink prior to watching a TV show – as he thought. The timing was all meticulously worked out. There was panic at the last moment when our man decided to stay on and finish his drink, not knowing that eleven million viewers were waiting for him to put in an appearance. We got him on stage just in time!

These are just two instances of the kind of thing that happens every week. We wonder what it will be like tonight?

LIAM NOLAN and KEN SMITH