Eamonn Andrews Show, The

1 9 6 4 – 1 9 6 9 (UK)
179 x 45 minute episodes

This 45-minute late-night chat and music programme from ABC was hosted by the genial Irishman (and This Is Your Life star) Eamonn Andrews and featured a collection of guests – some daring, some downright boring – who had Eamonn’s forehead in an even greater lather than usual.

Advertised as “Live from London” but actually recorded earlier that evening at ABC’s Teddington Studios, the show ran for five years on Sunday evenings with Eamonn sweating buckets over his “famous, frank and funny guest”.

Notable guests on the show over the five years included Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Gene Pitney, Spike Milligan, Randolph Churchill, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, Roger Moore, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Chubby Checker, Clint Eastwood, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Brian Epstein, Shirley Bassey, Raquel Welch, Michael Caine, Lucille Ball, Noel Coward, George Best, Mary Quant, Liza Minnelli, Sonny and Cher, Otis Redding, Lulu, Adam West and Jerry Lewis.

The Eamonn Andrews Show was the first real British attempt to repeat the success of American chat shows like Johnny Carson.

The BBC had made an earlier series of the same between December 1956 and April 1957 and Thames briefly made a third generation of the series between January and April 1979.

One critic likened the show to Barbirolli conducting Top Of The Pops.

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