was a satirical consumer affairs programme on the BBC, at its height regularly reaching audiences of fifteen to twenty million, and receiving between 10,000 and 15,000 letters a week.
That show ran from 1968 to 1972 on Saturday nights on BBC1, featuring Esther Rantzen and John Pitman as reporters, and Ronald Fletcher, Chris Munds and Hilary Pritchard as humorous punctuation.
It also featured Frankie Howerd, Victor Ross of Reader's Digest,[8] and an expose of Robert Maxwell's company Pergamon Press.
The format was highly popular and included a studio audience, a regular music slot featuring singer/songwriter Jake Thackray, and sketches performed by Munds and Pritchard.
After he left, producers Peter Chafer, John Lloyd and presenter Esther Rantzen were tasked by the BBC to create a replacement consumer programme without Braden.
broadcast in the summer of 1973 was written by John Lloyd, executive-produced by Peter Chafer and was presented by Esther Rantzen, George Layton (actor, director and screenwriter) and Bob Wellings (co-presenter of the nightly current affairs magazine programme Nationwide).
Including stories publicising dangerous cots, lifts, taxi doors, the introduction of safe playground surfaces,[14] and inspiring the legal requirement for seat belts for children in cars.
Professor Calne suggested the only way to encourage organ donation would be to tell Ben's story on TV, Debbie therefore contacted That's Life!
Author Ian Mucklejohn assisted the investigation and has written a book based on his experience teaching at the school and the evidence of pupils who suffered abuse there.
For many years the British drummer and composer Tony Kinsey was musical director and arranged the title song "That's Life!"
Eventually the musical interludes were provided by non-singers; staff of big companies sang "The Lay of the Week" to customers who complained, and unsuspecting members of the public became a choir in "Get Britain Singing" in which the team of reporters went undercover in gloomy locations such as service stations and hospitals in order to startle people with a cheerful blast of music that inspired them to burst into song.
[citation needed] In 1992, That's Life's talent contest called Search for a Star discovered singer Alison Jordan, and record producer Simon Cowell who offered a contract as the top prize.
[citation needed] Talented passers-by were also featured each week in the vox pops at the start of the show, including Annie Mizen, who was discovered in a street market in her eighties and became a star.
[33] In April 2024 Kirsty Wark presented an edition of the BBC Radio 4 series The Reunion, with guests George Layton, Chris Serle, Paul Heiney, Bill Buckley, Adrian Mills, Sir Peter Bazalgette, Jane Elsdon Dew and Esther Rantzen.
[34] Special programmes were created on serious issues discussed on That's Life!, such as stillbirth, mental health, fire safety, and volunteers in their own time refurbishing the St Petersburg Children's Hospital.
In October 2018, it was announced that a consumer show, Do The Right Thing would air on Channel 5, with Rantzen presenting alongside Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford.