Editing That's Life! (section)

=== Launch of ''That's Life!'' ===
The first series of ''That's Life!'' broadcast in the summer of 1973 was written by John Lloyd, executive-produced by Peter Chafer and was presented by Esther Rantzen, [[George Layton]] (actor, director and screenwriter) and [[Bob Wellings]] (co-presenter of the nightly current affairs magazine programme Nationwide). A regular feature was "Heap of the Week" filmed by [[William Nicholson (writer)|Bill Nicholson]], later a novelist and Oscar-nominated screenwriter. At the end of the run the Controller of BBC1 decided that the show had potential, but not with that presentation team, since only Rantzen was comfortable in the consumer role.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

A second series was commissioned for which Rantzen was promoted to producer and presenter, a role she held for the next twenty years. [[Kieran Prendiville]], a journalist who had worked on ''[[Man Alive (British TV series)|Man Alive]]'' (and who was part of the ''That's Life!'' production team at the beginning) and actor [[Glyn Worsnip]], both joined the team as reporters and stayed for five years.