Sir David Frost

Sue Lawley's guest is the veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost - the only British TV presenter to have interviewed seven American presidents and six British Prime Ministers who has, over the past five decades, become a broadcasting institution.

The presenter once known as a scourge of the Establishment has become something of an establishment figure himself, noted for his formidable contacts book, his star-studded parties, and for his gentle but revealing interviewing style.

Born in 1939, the youngest son of a Methodist minister and his wife, David was football and cricket-mad from an early age but with a burning ambition to go to Cambridge University. He arrived there in 1958, and threw himself into it, joining Footlights and editing Varsity and Granta.

After Cambridge, Ned Sherrin saw him performing a comedy act in a Mayfair bar and hired him up to present the iconic satirical programme That Was The Week That Was. Other successful programmes followed including Frost Over Britain and The Frost Report.

Breakfast with Frost ran for twelve years until early 2005. David is not retiring though and is due to present a new interview programme for Al-Jazeera International which will begin next Spring, and will also conduct occasional interviews for the BBC.

DISC ONE: Noël Coward - Mad Dogs and Englishmen
DISC TWO: Elton John - Your Song
DISC THREE: Coldplay - Fix You
DISC FOUR: Ray Charles - America the Beautiful
DISC FIVE: Michael Crawford - Music of the Night
DISC SIX: Bob Lind - Elusive Butterfly
DISC SEVEN: The Beatles - The Long and Winding Road
DISC EIGHT: Eric Coates’s The Dam Busters March - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Groves

CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Eric Coates’s The Dam Busters March
BOOK CHOICE: London A-Z
LUXURY CHOICE: Sunday papers

Producer: Leanne Buckle

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2005.