Norma Percy, film-maker

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

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Summary

Norma Percy is a documentary film-maker. She has been making programmes for over three decades and her productions have featured a range of political leaders from Tony Blair and Bill Clinton to Mikhail Gorbachev and Slobodan Milošević.

Her film-making method, which she developed alongside her colleague Brian Lapping, tells the stories of our times by taking viewers into the room where the big decisions were made, with the people who made them.

Norma was born in New York City and majored in Government at Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1963 she moved to London where she studied at the London School of Economics, before finding a job in the House of Commons as a researcher for the MP John Mackintosh.

In 1972 she became a researcher for Brian Lapping, working on the Granada series State of the Nation. Later she produced The Second Russian Revolution and the award-winning Watergate – a five-part BBC series about the Watergate scandal.

Her programmes have won an Emmy, two BAFTAs and four Royal Television Awards. Norma lives in London with her husband, the geneticist Professor Steve Jones.

DISC ONE: Be Prepared - Tom Lehrer DISC TWO: Waltz in C sharp-minor, Op.64 No. 2. Composed by Frederic Chopin and performed by Khatia Buniatishvili DISC THREE: Well, Did You Evah? - Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra DISC FOUR: Hard Day’s Night - The Beatles DISC FIVE: Never Say No - The Fantasticks New Off-Broadway Cast DISC SIX: Swan Lake, Op. 20, TH.12 / Act 3: The Black Swan. Composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and performed by Erich Gruenberg (violin), London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Richard Bonynge DISC SEVEN: It Ain’t Me Babe - Joan Baez DISC EIGHT: Political Science - Randy Newman

BOOK CHOICE: In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust LUXURY ITEM: A hot shower CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: It Ain’t Me Babe - Joan Baez

Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Transcript

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0:35.2	Hello, I'm Lauren Levern and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4.
0:40.0	Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
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1:28.4	I'm going to... My castaway this week is the filmmaker Norma Percy. She's been called the preeminent political documentary maker of her generation. Her films tell the story of the conflicts and political upheavals of our times,
1:34.3	from Watergate to Putin's Russia, taking viewers into the room where big decisions were made
1:39.3	with the people who were there. Her programs feature world leaders of all political persuasions, from Bill Clinton and Jerry Adams to Mikhail Gorbachev and Slobodan Milosevic, allowing their own words and their sometimes conflicting perspectives to take viewers closer to the truth. She was born in New York, and after a visit to London at 15, became a committed anglophile. She later studied at the London School of Economics and after a visit to London at 15 became a committed anglophile.
2:01.4	She later studied at the London School of Economics and became a House of Commons researcher
2:05.7	before a chance encounter with the journalist and producer Brian Lapping led to her start in television.
2:11.9	Her productions have won many prizes, including an Emmy, two BAFTAs and four Royal Television Society Awards. In 2010, she became the first TV documentary maker to win the Orwell Prize for Lifetime Achievement.
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