Great Lives

In the early summer of 1945, Lee Miller sent a telegram back to London about what she had seen in the Nazi death camps. “I implore you to believe this is true,” she wrote. Her employers were Vogue magazine. How did a famous beauty like Miller end up covering the war? Her extraordinary life and the images she left, most famously posing in Hitler's bath, are explored here by Lindsey Hilsum of Channel Four News. She is joined by Miller's son, Antony Penrose. Lee Miller was American, born in 1907, but lived in Paris and Cairo and then London during the blitz. Her lovers included Man Ray, she knew Cocteau and Picasso, and was an important surrealist. But it was her work in world war two that leads Lindsey Hilsum to claim her as Marie Colvin's spiritual ancestor. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde Photo copyright www.leemiller.co.uk

"It's absolutely joyous, one of the highlights of my career!" Peter Oborne on being joined by Martin Jarvis, the man who brings Just William to life. Journalist Oborne is nominating both William Brown and his creator, Richmal Crompton. She wrote 39 multi-million selling books, and her delight in William is clear to hear in the archive. Other contributors include her biographer, Mary Cadogan, and her niece, Richmal Ashbee. But it's the brilliance of Martin Jarvis's impersonations of William, Ginger and the gang that brings this programme to life. Plus the interplay between Peter Oborne and Matthew Parris. "Do you think William would have been Brexit?" "I don't think there's any evidence." The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde Future programmes in this series include Jeremy Paxman on Lord Shaftesbury, Bill Bailey on Alfred Russel Wallace and Lindsey Hilsum on the brilliant photographer Lee Miller.

The author Chibundu Onuzo nominates the first elected female in Africa, Constance Agatha Cummings-John. Chibundu discovered the remarkable story of Constance while studying for her PhD. Born into the Sierra Leonean Krios elite in 1918, Constance was brought up in colonial Freetown, with a lifestyle which most resembled English gentility. But everything changed for her when she travelled to England and America as a teenager. She experienced racism and segregation for the first time, and returned to Sierra Leone determined to fight the colonial rule of the British. At just twenty years old she became the first female elected councillor in Africa, and later the mayor of Freetown. But following independence, she would find herself in exile in London. Matthew Parris is joined in the studio by Chibundu and Constance's grandson, Dennis Cummings-John, to discuss prejudice, class and colonialism, through the inspirational story of a woman ahead of her time. Produced in Bristol by Polly Weston

The comedian Sindhu Vee has loved Prince ever since she was a young girl in India - when her sister gave her illicit cassettes recorded from U.S. radio. Hearing his music changed her life forever, and seeing him perform influenced her career as a comedian. Sindhu is joined by BAFTA-winning investigative journalist Mobeen Azhar (who's seen Prince live 54 times) and presenter Matthew Parris, to discuss the life of Prince Rogers Nelson - a pop polymath and global superstar, who was also a man of extreme contradictions and multiple personas. Produced by Eliza Lomas in Bristol.

Fiona Shaw, BAFTA award-winning star of Killing Eve, joins Matthew Parris to explore the life of one of history's most remarkable actresses whose name has slipped from public memory. She inspired Stanislavski's 'method', changed Chekhov's mind about acting, and took Chaplin's breath away - the nineteenth-century performer, Eleonora Duse. Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, professor of English and Theatre Studies at St Catherine's College, Oxford, helps Fiona and Matthew uncover the drama of Duse's life, both on and off the stage. Producer: Camellia Sinclair