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She deserves better than being known as ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’. It says something about the misogyny of 1960s TV that an attractive, intelligent woman like Joan Bakewell was regarded as such a novelty on screen. But it has been her lot to blaze a trail, from presenting the occasionally agenda-setting arts review show ‘Late Night Line Up’ to fronting ‘Newsnight’, a peerage and representing the elderly in public life.
As she reaches 80, Bakewell is tonight subjected to a light grilling from fellow small-screen pioneer David Frost which promises to cover TV, pornography, politics and swinging London. At 10pm comes a stroll through 50 years of a life in television, with archive footage of Bakewell taking on Robin Day, Nelson Mandela and Bing Crosby.