The television man

Sir David Frost, who died on August 31st, aged 74, started his career on television fronting the satirical BBC show “That Was the Week that Was”, in the 1960s. His light touch was deceptive. Sir David sprang to wider fame when in 1977 he interviewed the former American president, Richard Nixon, and extracted an overdue apology for the Watergate scandal: “I let down my friends. I let down the country.” A combination of easy charm and nimble instinct ensured Sir David a long and lucrative career as a presenter afterwards. Asked to summarise his best technique for eliciting information from equivocating guests, he recommended a curious expression and the words, “Really? Aha. Go on.”