Reviewed by George Ivanoff

I’m not normally this effusive with reviews, but I can say without a doubt that An Audience with Peter Ustinov is television brilliance. Go out and purchase a copy right now — you won’t regret it. The late Sir Peter Ustinov will win you over with his easy charm and wit. Ustinov (1921-2004) was an accomplished actor, writer, director, journalist, diplomat and United Nations Children’s Fund ambassador. He won numerous awards including two Oscars, three Emmys and one Golden Globe. He also had quite a reputation as a raconteur, making talk-show appearances all around the world and playing sell-out performances of his one-man show.

An Audience with Peter Ustinov is a 1988 television special from the UK. It’s a very simple production, really. The producers found a studio audience of famous people and stuck Sir Peter out in front of them for fifty-minutes. Ustinov starts out with a few jokes and a couple of stories, and then opens things up to questions from the celebrity audience. With a lesser speaker, this format could have been boring or even tragic, but Ustinov is an extremely accomplished and interesting speaker, with the unique talent of making even the most mundane topic interesting.

Ustinov has a very laid-back, easy style, making him appear completely comfortable in front of his audience. His stories and reminiscences are funny, observant and well-told, peppered with suburb imitations of people and accents. His humour is witty but never nasty, even when making jokes at the expense of US politicians.

The DVD contains a couple of extras in the form of a 1981 interview from The Don Lane Show and a 1990 interview from The Midday Show. Both well worth watching. Apart from again showcasing Ustinov’s talent, these interviews are also interesting from an Australian television perspective, in that they demonstrate what a truly awful interviewer Don Lane was, and how much better Ray Martin was. Congratulations to Madman for going one better than the original UK DVD release and adding these interviews.

An Audience with Peter Ustinov
(1988)

Available through Madman Entertainment.