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
