Returning: Peschardt’s People

This month BBC World News premieres a new series of Peschardt’s People which looks at the lives of some of the most  influential personalities across the Asia-Pacific region.

Michael Peschardt is a former Senior Foreign Correspondent with BBC News who spends an average of three days with each of his guests. He interviews them about the people, places, encouraging them to open up and talk sincerely and passionately about their lives.

Prior to hosting his own show on BBC World, Michael spent fifteen years as the BBC’s foreign correspondent in Australia.

The new series, which lasts 26 weeks, has been filmed across the world in India, the Middle East, Korea, Japan, the UK, New Zealand, Thailand and Singapore.

Over the past six years, Peschardt’s People guests have included Robert De Niro, the Royal Family of Bahrain, Toni Collette and Sir Edmund Hillary.

In the first episode Peschardt interviews Dr Chris O’Brien, the former Head of the Sydney Cancer Centre, whose life has been turned upside down since the discovery of a cancerous tumour in his brain. He talks with courage, dignity and breath-taking honesty about the approach of death – what it means to him and his family and what others might learn from his experiences.

Also in the new series are Greg Norman and New Zealand’s Georgina Beyer, the world’s first transsexual member of parliament.

It premieres Saturday 11 April 2330 GMT and is repeated Sundays: 0430, 1330 GMT.