Rare insights into the art and ethics of TV talk, as Malcolm Muggeridge goes face to face with the interviewer’s interviewer.

In 1961, John Freeman was one of British television’s most prominent figures, known for his incisive, probing interviews for the BBC series Face to Face (1959-62), where his guests included such heavyweights as Dr Martin Luther-King, Dame Edith Sitwell, Bertrand Russell and Carl Jung, alongside writers, actors, pop singers and sportsmen. Here, Freeman finds himself at the other end of the questions, with Malcolm Muggeridge as his interlocuter.

It’s a wide-ranging and often illuminating conversation between two major public figures of the day, with quite similar experiences – both men had worked in journalism and broadcasting, shared a history of left-wing politics: Freeman was a former Labour MP; Muggeridge had dabbled in communism (though he would eventually convert to Catholicism and adopt much more conservative views.

Freeman talks candidly and thoughtfully about journalism (Freeman was then editor of the magazine the New Statesman, his ‘ideal job’), the role of the press, left-wing politics and the Labour Party and the limits of personal liberty. But arguably the most interesting section is the thoughtful exploration of the ethics of interviewing right at the start.

This was a potentially sensitive subject for Freeman, given the controversy surrounding his recent interviews with comedian Tony Hancock and broadcaster Gilbert Harding, both of whom had been clearly uncomfortable with his line of questioning. Harding, a complex and tortured spirit labelled ‘the rudest man in Britain’ in the tabloid press, broke down in tears when probed about his relationship with his mother, whose death six years earlier he clearly still deeply mourned.

Responding to Muggeridge’s questions about ‘vulgar or intrusive’ questioning, Freeman explains ‘I wouldn’t willingly ask anybody a question in front of millions of viewers that I had reason to think would be hurtful or resented,” before admitting, ‘I’m quite sure I haven’t always lived up to that.’ He acknowledges that his treatment of Harding ‘overstepped the mark’, and was ‘a mistake I oughtn’t to have made’.

Malcolm Muggeridge’s Appointment With… series (1960-62) was in many ways ITV’s equivalent of Face to Face, with the host – clearly enjoying his role as public intellectual - genially interrogating the likes of Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell, trade unionist Ted Hill and playwright Arthur Miller.

Today, Muggeridge is best remembered by many for his 1979 appearance on another chat show, Friday Night, Saturday Morning, when, alongside the Bishop of Southwark, he launched a fierce attack on Monty Python members John Cleese and Michael Palin for the alleged blasphemy in their film Life of Brian.