Documentaries
An indepth look at stories and issues from around the world. This podcast offers you the chance to access landmark series from our archive.
Bonus: Lives Less Ordinary presents, Hold Fast!
The incredible true story of how The Avontuur was locked down at sea for 188 days during the Covid-19 pandemic, with 15 people on board. The journey begins for ship’s cook Giulia Baccosi when she accepts a last-minute job aboard the sailing cargo ship The Avontuur. She tells the captain…
Mud wrestling and tent pegging: Africa’s unusual sports
We take a look at some of the more unusual sports practiced on the African continent. Kelvin Kimathi recently travelled to Uganda where a muddy version of entertainment wrestling is becoming increasingly popular. Marcia Veiga discovered Capoeira Angola whilst finding a way to connect with her own Angolan heritage. Eshlin…
Ukrainians at war and their hopes for peace
While US President Donald Trump spearheads efforts to halt the conflict in Ukraine, Russian drones and missiles continue to kill and injure civilians, invaders control around a fifth of the country, and many Ukrainians fear that any peace agreement could result in a permanent loss of territory. Away from the…
Gaudí: God’s architect
In one of his final official acts before he died, Pope Francis put Antoni Gaudí, Spain’s most famous architect, onto the path to sainthood. Gaudí's masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia, is a towering basilica, strangely designed and bursting with colour. It stands in the heart of Barcelona and its walls recount…
White Coats Vs the White House
What is going on with US science? Science Journalist Roland Pease asks whether the rounds of cuts, reorganisations and political strong-arming can be weathered, and how they will likely affect us all. 80 years after Vannevar Bush proposed what became the pact between government and universities that led to decades…
Dan Meis: Designing a football stadium
The inaugural premier league football match at Everton’s much anticipated new stadium will kick off on 23rd August 2025, as the home side host Brighton & Hove Albion. Everton Football Club's radical new home was designed by innovative sports architect Dan Meis, who has developed a reputation for out-of-the-box, innovative…
Europe’s migrant crisis: the truck that shocked the world
In the summer of 2015 tens of thousands of people left their homes in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq in the hope of finding a safe haven in Europe. The journeys they took were often hazardous and not everyone reached their destination. In one of the most notorious cases, 71 migrants…
The Herds: Life-sized puppets flee climate change
A vast herd of life-size puppet animals travel from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle, to flee the effects of climate change. Following their internationally successful project, The Walk with Little Amal, in which a 13-foot puppet visited 17 countries, drawing attention to the vast numbers of children fleeing…
Ghost cities FC
Qarabag FK is not only a refugee football club but also the most successful team in Azerbaijan. Located in Baku, they originally hail from the 'ghost' city of Aghdam, in the Nagorno Karabakh region of the South Caucasus. When a war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the late…
Ghost cities FC
Qarabag FK is not only a refugee football club but also the most successful team in Azerbaijan. Located in Baku, they originally hail from the 'ghost' city of Aghdam, in the Nagorno Karabakh region of the South Caucasus. When a war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the late…
Comedians and Afghan weddings
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, they introduced many controversial measures, including a ban on music. How do people celebrate special occasions, like weddings? BBC Pashto’s Payenda Sargand recently attended a wedding in the southern city of Kandahar and tells us about the other forms of entertainment…
Messages from Sudan's war
Few people in Sudan have been left untouched by the civil war. More than 150,000 people have died, 12 people million have been forced to leave their homes and millions face starvation. The conflict broke out in April 2023 after a vicious struggle for power between the Sudanese army and…
The president’s path: Trump’s Latino base
Donald Trump will not be on the ballot in next year’s midterm elections, but his policies will be put to the electoral test. Sumi Somaskanda, Courtney Subramanian, and Bernd Debusmann Jr explore how the president’s latest actions on immigration and economy could shape Latino voter behaviour in the 2026 midterms…
Birding the gender gap
During the annual World Series of Birding in New Jersey, US, teams compete to see who can identify the most bird species in 24 hours. For team Galbatross the goal is different and much harder - they only identify female birds. This self-imposed restriction is a form of activism, calling…
Mo Salah: Egyptian king
Mo Salah is one of Egypt's biggest and highly influential footballing icons. John Bennett visit his home village of Nagrig to meet the people who helped shape his early career and see the impact he still has on his local community. He explores the journey Salah took from Nagrig to…
Tajikistan’s last, lonely hyenas
For decades, conservationists in Tajikistan assumed that the striped hyena – a shy, less vocal cousin of the spotted hyena – was extinct there. But in 2017 a motion-sensitive camera trap in the country’s south-western corner, near the borders with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, detected the presence of a female with…
Yoko Nishina: Japanese calligraphy
Yoko Nishina likes to use black Japanese Sumi ink in her calligraphy work because of the variety of colours , from blues through to browns. Craftsmen still use traditional methods to create the ink from vegetable oil lamps with wicks made of reeds. She creates both large and small works…
Has Ghana's ‘Year of Return’ been a success?
Back in 2019, Ghana’s then president sent out an invitation to people with African heritage to come to Ghana. It was called the Year of Return - a campaign by Ghana's tourism board to mark 400 years since the first documented African slaves were taken to America. The campaign built…
Why are Chinese micro-dramas so popular?
Secret billionaire husbands, blood-thirsty vampire lovers and being reborn as your great-grandmother: these are some of the outrageous plotlines that can be found in Chinese micro-dramas like My Royal Secret Lover, by producer Lin Yicheng. Micro-dramas are a Chinese short form video trend that has expanded globally, racking up hundreds…
Israelis and the war in Gaza
Israel faces growing international pressure to end the war in Gaza. But on Thursday night Israel's security cabinet approved plans to expand military operations, with the aim of defeating Hamas and returning the hostages. The decision has been criticised by world leaders, the United Nations and even the country’s own…