PRODUCTIONS

THE WEEK WE WENT TO WAR

5x45' for BBC1 Daytime

From families who took in evacuees to ordinary people who saved lives, this series - presented by Katherine Jenkins who is joined by Michael Aspel - honours the everyday heroes who helped win the war at home. It will be broadcast daily from September 7 to September 11 2009 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War.

The Week We Went to War looks at what life was like in Britain during the war from a 21st century perspective. What did our parents and grandparents go through, what were their daily acts of heroism? What is it like when a loved one goes off to war - and comes back a stranger? How does it feel to be torn away from everyday life and sent away as an evacuee - and what happened to the friendships that were made then.

The series looks at everything from civilian tragedies such as the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster and the German bombing of schoolchildren at Sandhurst School in South London to the heroic way St Paul's was saved as the City of London burned on one of the worst nights of the Blitz. With a series of special reports by Tony Livesey, it investigates subjects like wartime food and fashion, as well as the way we played, the way we loved and the way we lost, while 21-year-old student and Masterchef contestant Ben Ellison lives for a month on wartime rations - are they healthier than today's diet?

The Week We Went to War shows how the war changed the lives of ordinary people - and we also hear from celebrities Sylvia Syms, Shirley Williams, Tony Benn, Lionel Blair, Leslie Phillips and Rabbi Lionel Blue about their wartime memories.

LIVING WITH ART DECO

4x30' for BBC4

Following the success of his earlier Finestripe series for BBC4, Touring Britain, design and architectural historian David Heathcote shares his passion for Art Deco - the style which arrived in Britain with the Depression of the 1930s and brought a little glamour to people's lives.

In each of the four programmes, David visits and explores a gem of Art Deco design. They are Claridges Hotel, the Orient Express, 55 Broadway - London Transport HQ and once the capital's tallest skyscraper - and Casa Del Rio, a remarkable Art Deco house built by a British businessman in Devon in the 1920s.

SHRINK RAP

Shrink Rap (for More4/Channel 4) is an antidote to every superficial, one-dimensional, plug-heavy chat show on TV. In Shrink Rap, writer, actress and former Not the Nine O'Clock News star Pamela Stephenson - in her professional persona of psychologist Dr Pamela Connolly - has an in-depth, face to face conversation with some of the most fascinating people in the world. Her aim: to get behind the 'official story' with which her interviewees protect themselves in public and uncover something of who they really are. From her own observation, both personal and professional, Pamela believes that fame is a trauma. In Shrink Rap, she sets out to discover how her subjects have coped with living with fame.

Series One (5x60') : Stephen Fry, Sharon Osbourne, Robin Williams, Sarah Duchess of York, David Blunkett MP.

Series Two (6x60') : Chris Langham, Joan Rivers, Gene Simmons, Tony Curtis, Salman Rushdie and Kathleen Turner.

Series Three (3x60') : Billy Connolly, Carrie Fisher, TBA