I saw this BBC documentary years ago about sleep. Part of it showed a
group of psychology students going without sleep for as long as
possible, to study the effects. They did the experiment in a British
man's home; this man had some sort of condition so that he didn't
sleep. In fact, he couldn't sleep if he wanted to.

Who is this man, and for extra Brownie points, what is the
documentary?

Hello.

Here's a description of the documentary from Ambrosevideo.com:

The Man Who Never Slept 
From the Series: The Sleep Files
Produced by Channel 4 - London (1998)
"For decades, the case of Peter Tripp remained the longest period of
sleeplessness ever documented. But then in 1986 scientists discovered
a bizarre sleep disorder. Victims of fatal familial insomnia, simply
stop sleeping altogether. In altered states we see a man who has not
slept - at all - for almost six months."
http://www.ambrosevideo.com/displayitem.cfm?vid=91

As mentioned, the condition is "fatal familial insomnia." For more
information, see this page from University of Michigan:
http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~jcthomas/JCTHOMAS/1997%20Case%20Studies/AAkroush.html

Also see this page from Stanford University:
http://www.stanford.edu/~cinders8/ffi.html

search strategy: documentary, "who never slept"

I hope this helps.

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Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 05 Aug 2002 21:29 PDT

By the way, the sleepless man in the documentary is identified as
Michael Corke, a music teacher from Chicago. For more information, see
this Goscience.com.au web page:
http://www.goscience.com.au/default.asp?content=dynamic&title=Sleep%3A+how+much+sleep+do+you+really+need%3F&casid=466&docid=253&type=1&children=6

Comprehensive and fast. Top marks!

Haven't found anything yet, but I'd like to say, markabe-ga, that you
ask some of the most interesting questions!