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Victoria Wood and Rory Bremner view the original diaries of Nella Last in the Mass Observation Archive

A television programme featuring a visit to the Mass Observation Archive in the Library by TV stars Rory Bremner and Victoria Wood will be screened next week (9pm on Monday 18 January) on BBC 4. 

The programme is the third of a three-part series, 'Dear Diary', which explores the act of diary writing, illustrated by some very famous examples. 

Political satirist and impressionist Rory Bremner included the visit to the Mass Observation Archive as part of his look at journals by Samuel Pepys, Alan Clark and Captain Scott - and the wartime diaries written by Mass Observation correspondents during World War II. 

Bremner chatted to comedian and actor Victoria Wood about the significance of the Archive's collection of wartime diaries kept by ordinary people on behalf of the Mass Observation project. Wood won a BAFTA two years ago for her adaptation of Nella Last's Mass Observation diaries. She also starred in the resulting ITV drama, 'Housewife, 49'. 

Special Collections Manager Fiona Courage and her team were on hand to help the celebrities navigate the brown boxes of original letters and diaries that make up the Mass Observation Archive, stored in Special Collections in the Library. They were joined by Dorothy Sheridan, Director of the Mass Observation Project. 

Fiona says: "Rory was very friendly and funny, and really engaged with the diaries that he was looking through. He brought out both the funny and the moving side of the things that Nella was writing about." 

Dorothy says: "The film crew were keen to capture Victoria Wood's first actual sight of the original Nella Last diary. For her drama, she had worked entirely from the edited book for 'Housewife 49'. This was the first time she had visited the Archive at Sussex, seen the diary in context - and seen Nella's handwriting. 

"Rory Bremner was very funny. He kept slipping into impersonations of people over lunch, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton." 

She adds: "With the new wave of interest in family history, personal stories and life history, the Mass Observation diaries have really come into their own. 

"This period of our history is now slipping away from living memory so the diaries become increasingly important as a way of understanding adult experience during the Second World War."