Network: CBC Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1981 to 1982
Broadcast Medium: Television
Aired Friday nights from July 3 to September 25, 1981. Repeated April
18 to August 22, 1982 on Sunday afternoons.
This half hour program was hosted by Patrick Watson. It was a show
dedicated to interviewing some of the most memorable people in history. Watson had hosted a similar program in the 1970s called Witness to Yesterday (q.v.), which offered interviews with Hitler, Socrates, Sir John A. Macdonald and
William Shakespeare.
This show featured well-prepared actors portraying various figures from
the past, with Watson interviewing them in his old, mansion-like
living room. David Calderisi played Napoleon; Marilyn Lightstone was
Nefertiti; Chris Wiggins portrayed Galileo; Frances Hyland was Queen
Elizabeth I, who had to endure Watson’s personal questions about why
she never married; writer W.O. Mitchell impersonated Stephen Leacock;
Len Birman was Nostradamus; John Neville was made up as Confucius; John
Marley did Albert Einstein; Cedric Smith re-created Billy Bishop and (when the actor scheduled to play the role could not appear)Watson interviewed himself as Alexander Graham Bell. On Witness to Yesterday, Watson had played Leonardo Da Vinci.
The executive producer of the series was Moses Znaimer for Titans
Television Limited, in cooperation with the CBC. The producer was Lisa
Smith and the director Tom O’Neill. The show was also broadcast on
CITY-TV.
Written by John Corcelli – November, 2005