Christopher Lee

Christopher is a multi-talented writer, broadcaster and academic. He is a former BBC Defence Correspondent and has worked for BFBS since the 1980s. He was first the producer of the defence magazine programme, Sitrep, and then its presenter. He is also regularly heard on other BFBS Radio 2 programmes commenting on the latest twists and turns on the world’s geo-political stage.

Christopher read history at Goldsmiths, London and was the first Quatercentary Fellow in Contemporary History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was also the college’s 2001 Gomes Lecturer. At Cambridge he researched the historical origins of post-World War II foreign and military policy-making in East-West relations.

Christopher wrote a British history from Julius Caesar to Queen Victoria. It was this work which was adapted for BBC Radio 4 as This Sceptred Isle, his award-winning radio history of Britain. The series, broadcast in 216 episodes between June 1995 and June 1996 was followed by This Sceptred Isle - the 20th Century. Books, cassettes and CDs of both radio series followed and became best sellers.

Christopher is a regular broadcaster on international politics and was one of the advisers to government departments and the BBC during the recent war in Iraq. He is also editor of the latest edition of Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-speaking Peoples, and is compiling A Diary of British History. His history of the year 1603 was published in March 2003 marking the 400th anniversary of the death of Elizabeth I. His Trafalgar, the story of the most famous sea battle in European history, is to be published in spring 2005 and his History of the British Empire towards the end of 2005

Although most of his work is history based, Christopher Lee has written more than fifty radio plays. His latest BBC Radio 4 comedy Our Brave Boys, starring Martin Jarvis and Fiona Shaw was first broadcast in the autumn of 2001. The third series will be broadcast in December 2003. His political stage play Will The Real IDS Sit Down goes into London production in January 2004.