New Norma Percy (Brook Lapping) documentary on ‘The Iraq War’

The new Norma Percy production in the Brook Lapping series of contemporary history documentaries is “The Iraq War”, showing on three successive Wednesdays at 9pm on BBC2, starting this Wednesday, 29 May.  Norma Percy and Brook Lapping have won numerous awards for their documentaries on, for example, Iran and the West, The Death of Yugoslavia, the Second Russian Revolution and The End-game in Ireland.  Their special feature is an uncanny ability to persuade the leading protagonists in each of the crises they have covered to take part in the programme and tell their own sides of the story, sometimes with startling frankness — everyone from Gorbachev to Milosevic.  The new programme on the Iraq war should be well worth watching, if Norma Percy’s past productions are anything to go by.  It ought to be a good curtain-raiswer for the long delayed report of the Chilcot Inquiry.

Full disclosure: I have no financial or other stake in Brook Lapping except that Brian Lapping, Norma Percy’s Executive Producer, is an old friend from university days and an outstanding television producer.  There’s more about Norma Percy at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Percy.  I think it’s safe to say that Brian Lapping the television producer is not related to the Brian Lapping of Brian Lapping Massage, Bloomington, Illinois.

Brian