Opinions (TV series)
Opinions was a British talk programme broadcast on Channel 4 television in the 1980s and 1990s. According to Time magazine, Opinions gave "a public figure 30-minutes of airtime each week to expound on a controversial topic (Germaine Greer on Margaret Thatcher, Edward Teller on nuclear defence)".[1] "A speaker could express his or her own views straight to camera for 30 minutes"[2] "an earnest of Channel 4's faith and mission to bring edgy, alternative fare to the public and to excite reaction".[3]
During the time it was produced by Open Media, the series featured such figures as Edward de Bono, Alan Clark, Linda Colley, James Goldsmith, Paul Hill, Dusan Makavejev, G.F. Newman, George Soros and Norman Stone.[4] One - by Dennis Potter, in 1993 - was given a cinema screening by the BFI in July 2014.[5]
Among those appearing in the Opinions 1993 debate in Westminster Central Hall about democracy in Britain chaired by Vincent Hanna were Zaki Badawi, Christopher Hitchens, Paul Kennedy, Michael Mansfield, David Miliband, Geoff Mulgan, Vincent Nichols, Jonathan Sacks, Nancy Seear and Crispin Tickell.[6]
References
- ↑ TIME magazine, vol.128, 9-17
- ↑ Dorothy Hobson, Channel 4: The Early Years and the Jeremy Isaacs Legacy, I.B.Tauris, 2008
- ↑ Peter Lee-Wright, "The Documentary Handbook", Routledge, 2009
- ↑ Production company website, accessed 10 March 2015
- ↑ Dennis Potter: The Outsider Inside, BFI website, accessed 4 July 2014
- ↑ The Opinions Debate, transmitted by Channel 4 on 28 March 1993 (the eve of the 50th birthday of the then Prime Minister John Major)