This Is Your Life is also a long-running British
TV series, hosted in recent years by
Michael Aspel. The premise is that they arrange a spurious event for a
celebrity to host or speak at, and then Aspel pops out brandishing a
red book, from which he presents the audience with a potted biography of the celebrity. As the story unfolds, various guests are brought on (such as relatives, teachers, famous friends) to tell their anecdotes. Sometimes the subject hasn't seen some of the people in years.
Since the BBC acquired the format, they've run the show into the ground (as they have done with Through The Keyhole). The "celebrities" are often hardly famous - pointlessly, they even resort to scraping through the bottom of the barrel by profiling the "stars" of fly-on-the-wall documentaries such as fuckwitted talent vacuum Jane MacDonald and simpering, senile Maureen from Driving School. I don't doubt that the Big Brother cast of cretins are lined up for future episodes of the show, should the Beeb be able to afford them.
Also, they have "done" some people several times over, most notably Spike Milligan (3 times at last count). Harry Hill (who has since been "done" on the show) used to do a routine where he is about to sit in the chair to have an episode done about him, when Michael Aspel notices a fly has landed on the chair - and the rules state they have to do the life of whoever is on the chair. So they have to clear all Hill's friends out of the studio and drive the fly's family down on a coach. "It was one of the best shows they ever did..."