Peschardt's People is a documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 television series, hosted by Michael Peschardt

Michael Peschardt

-Early life:Educated at Merchant Taylors' School in Northwood, London and the University of Sussex he joined the BBC as a network reporter from 1983.-BBC career:...

, that premiered on BBC World on 1 April 2006. In the series, Peschardt interviews famous and not so famous personalities from the Asia-Pacific region. In order to be featured in the series, Peschardt has said that his subjects "must have something extraordinary about their lives". The basic format of the show is that Peschardt's guests show him some of the places that are important to them: their favourite cities, their favourite beaches, their favourite restaurants, where they work, where they grew up, where they live. Each episode is filmed entirely on location. Although Peschardt has stated that he does not interview politicians, he later interviewed former Member of Parliament Georgina Beyer

Georgina Beyer

Georgina Beyer was the world's first openly transsexual mayor, as well as the world's first openly transsexual Member of Parliament, and from 27 November 1999 until 14 February 2007 was an MP for the Labour Party in New Zealand.-Early life:Georgina Bertrand was born and assigned male at birth, and...

. More than 150 interviews have been broadcast since its launch.

The programme is broadcast to over 200 countries on the BBC footprint, reaching every corner of the globe.
It is repeated a number of times to ensure the programme is aired in peak-time in all major markets.

Episodes

In the first thirteen-part series the interviewees include New Zealand actor Sam Neill

Sam Neill

Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....

, Australian businesswoman Janet Holmes à Court

Janet Holmes à Court

Janet Holmes à Court, AC, HFAIB is an Australian businesswoman, and one of Australia's wealthiest women. She is the Chairman of one of Australia's largest private companies, Heytesbury Pty Ltd, having turned around its fortunes after the death of her husband Robert Holmes à Court in 1990...

, musician Vanessa-Mae

Vanessa-Mae

Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson , known professionally as Vanessa-Mae , is an internationally known British violinist. Her music style is self-described as "violin techno-acoustic fusion", as several of her albums prominently feature the techno style...

, Bollywood

Bollywood

Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 actress Preity Zinta

Preity Zinta

Preity Zinta is an Indian film actress. She has appeared in Hindi films of Bollywood, as well as Telugu, Punjabi and English language films. After graduating with a degree in criminal psychology, Zinta made her acting debut in Dil Se in 1998 followed by a role in Soldier the same year...

, Australian author Doris Pilkington Garimara

Doris Pilkington Garimara

Doris Pilkington Garimara AM is an Australian author. She is best known for her 1996 book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, a story of three Aboriginal girls, among them Pilkington's mother Molly Craig, who escaped from the Moore River Native Settlement in Western Australia and travelled for nine...

, Indian writer Shobhaa De, gold prospector

Prospecting

Prospecting is the physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is also known as fossicking.Prospecting is a small-scale form of mineral exploration which is an organised, large scale effort undertaken by mineral resource companies to find commercially viable ore...

 Cranston Edward, Thai

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 businessman Sompan Charumilinda, plastic surgeon Fiona Wood

Fiona Wood

Fiona Melanie Wood, AM is a British born plastic surgeon working in Perth, Western Australia. She is the director of the Royal Perth Hospital burns unit and the Western Australia Burns Service...

, Indian businessman Vijay Mallya

Vijay Mallya

Vijay Mallya is an Indian liquor and airline baron. The son of industrialist Vittal Mallya, he is the chairman of the United Breweries Group and Kingfisher Airlines. His United Spirits is world's second largest liquor maker, by volume...

, Thai businesswoman Pannin Kitiparaporn, and Australian professional basketball player Luc Longley

Luc Longley

Lucien James "Luc" Longley is a retired Australian professional basketball player, who was the first Australian to play in the NBA, where he played for eleven seasons...

.

A second series began on 7 April 2007, with interviews of mountaineer Edmund Hillary

Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, KG, ONZ, KBE , was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953 at the age of 33, he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest – see Timeline of climbing Mount Everest...

, businessman N. R. Narayana Murthy

N. R. Narayana Murthy

Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy , better known as N. R. Narayana Murthy, is an Indian industrialist and software engineer. He and six other engineers founded Infosys in 1981. Mr. Murthy served as CEO from 1981 to 2002. From 2002 to 2011, he served as Chairman...

, actor Naseeruddin Shah

Naseeruddin Shah

Naseeruddin Shah is an Indian / Bollywood film actor and director. He is considered to be one of the finest actors of Indian cinema. In 2003, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Bhushan for his contributions towards Indian cinema.-Early life:...

, actress Shabana Azmi

Shabana Azmi

Shabana Azmi is an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. An alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India of Pune, she made her film debut in 1974 and soon became one of the leading actresses of parallel cinema, an Indian New Wave movement known for its serious content and...

, and actor Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades...

.

In 2009, a new series included interviews with surgeon Chris O'Brien

Chris O'Brien (surgeon)

Christopher John "Chris" O'Brien AO was an Australian head and neck surgeon. He achieved national recognition as a compassionate surgeon in the reality television series RPA.-Early life:...

, designer Kim Young Se, politician Georgina Beyer

Georgina Beyer

Georgina Beyer was the world's first openly transsexual mayor, as well as the world's first openly transsexual Member of Parliament, and from 27 November 1999 until 14 February 2007 was an MP for the Labour Party in New Zealand.-Early life:Georgina Bertrand was born and assigned male at birth, and...

, filmmaker Niki Caro

Niki Caro

Niki Caro is film director, producer and screenwriter who was born in Wellington, New Zealand. Her 2002 film Whale Rider was critically praised and won a number of awards at international film festivals....

, athlete Sun Ji Hai, writer Lijia Zhang

Lijia Zhang

Lijia Zhang is a writer, journalist and public speaker. She describes herself as a communicator between China and the world and has given talks at conferences about contemporary China and lectured at many top universities including Stanford and Harvard and The University of Sydney.Early in life...

, fashion designer Suzie Moncrieff, and golfer Greg Norman

Greg Norman

Gregory John Norman AO is an Australian professional golfer and entrepreneur who spent 331 weeks as the world's Number 1 ranked golfer in the 1980s and 1990s...

.

Other interviews have been with Governor General Quentin Bryce

Quentin Bryce

Quentin Bryce, AC, CVO is the 25th and current Governor-General of Australia and former Governor of Queensland....

, actor Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...

, the Royal Family of Bahrain, the King and Queen of Bollywood Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades...

 and Aishwarya Rai

Aishwarya Rai

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is an Indian film actress. She worked as a model before starting her acting career, and ultimately won the Miss World pageant in 1994...

, Australian actress Toni Collette

Toni Collette

Antonia "Toni" Collette is an Australian actress and musician, known for her acting work on stage, television and film as well as a secondary career as the lead singer of the band Toni Collette & the Finish....

, English comedian Ben Elton

Ben Elton

Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....

, former Australian cricketer Dennis Lillee

Dennis Lillee

Dennis Keith Lillee, AM, MBE is a former Australian cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation"...

, Indian actress Shilpa Shetty

Shilpa Shetty

Shilpa Shetty is an Indian film actress and model. Since making her debut in the film Baazigar , she has appeared in nearly 40 Bollywood, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films, her first leading role being in the 1994 Aag. Although she has been through years of decline during her career, Shetty has been...

, Japanese restauranteur Nobu, author Diane Wei Liang, singer Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John AO, OBE is a singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA...

, Singaporean actress Fann Wong

Fann Wong

Fann Woon Fong , better known by her stage name Fann Wong, is a Singaporean actress, singer and model.At Singapore's Star Awards 1995, Fann became the first actress to win both the Best Actress and Best Newcomer awards in the same year...

, golfer Lam Chih Bing, former tennis player Rod Laver

Rod Laver

Rodney George "Rod" Laver MBE is an Australian former tennis player who holds the record for titles won in career, and was the World No. 1 player for seven consecutive years, from 1964 to 1970...

, and Australian rugby league player Clint Newton

Clint Newton

Clint Newton is an American born professional rugby league footballer who plays for Hull Kingston Rovers in Super League. He previously played for Newcastle Knights and Melbourne Storm in the National Rugby League competition...

.