This Is Your Life (UK TV series)

This is Your Life
Title card of 2007 revival.
Genre	Documentary Biography
Presented by	Eamonn Andrews (1955–1964, 1969–1987) Michael Aspel (1987–2003) Trevor McDonald (2007)
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	43
No. of episodes	1,130
Production
Running time	30–60 minutes
Production company(s)	BBC Productions (1955–1964) Thames Television (1969–2003) Click TV (2007) Ralph Edwards Productions (2007) STV Productions (2007) ITV Productions (2007) TIYL Productions (2007)
Distributor	Fremantle Media ITV Studios STV Group plc
Release
Original network	BBC One (29 July 1955 – 30 April 1964, 2 November 1994 – 8 August 2003) ITV (19 November 1969 – 20 July 1994, 2 June 2007)
Original release	1955–1964, 1969–2003, 2007
Chronology
Related shows	American version New Zealand version Australian version

This is Your Life is a British biographical television documentary, based on the 1952 American show of the same name. It was hosted by Eamonn Andrews from 1955 until 1964, and then from 1969 until his death in 1987 aged 64. Michael Aspel then took up the role of host until the show ended in 2003. It returned in 2007 as a one-off special presented by Trevor McDonald, which to date was its most recent airing.

In the show the host surprises a special guest, before taking them through their life with the assistance of the 'big red book'. Both celebrities and non-celebrities have been 'victims' of the show. The show was originally broadcast live, and over its run it has alternated between being broadcast on the BBC and on ITV.

The surprise element was a very important part of the show; if the guest heard about the project beforehand, it would be immediately abandoned.

The British version of the show was launched in 1955 on the BBC and was first presented by Ralph Edwards to the first "victim", Eamonn Andrews, who was the presenter from the second show. The scriptwriter for the first 35 episodes was Gale Pedrick. It ended in 1964 when Andrews moved to Associated British Corporation, but it was revived on ITV (produced by Thames Television) in 1969.

The only other occasion during Andrews' presentational run where he was not the presenter was in 1974 when he was the subject a second time, and the show was presented by David Nixon. Michael Aspel (himself, a "victim" in 1980) became presenter after Andrews died in 1987. The show returned to the BBC in 1994 but was still produced independently by Thames Television. The programme was axed again in 2003.

At first, the show was always broadcast live; later, programmes were sometimes pre-recorded. Live broadcasts ended in 1983 when boxer Alan Minter could not stop swearing during his appearance, but newspapers were able to find out which star was to be featured and ratings dropped as people no longer watched it just to see who was on that week.