The Documentary Podcast
Episodes
Heart and Soul: The ‘living saint’ who hid a mystical sex sect
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jean Vanier changed Richard and Hazel’s lives. He founded the L’Arche movement – a global network inspired by Christian teaching – where peopl...
Myanmar’s war in the air
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Russia is supplying the Myanmar military with advanced fighter jets and training their pilots how to use them in a war against their own people. More ...
Metaleurop : A stain on France
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For years the people of Evin-Malmaison in north-east France have lived and brought up children in a town which is dangerously polluted. The Metaleurop...
In the Studio: Alberta Whittle
29 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alberta is an award-winning Barbadian-Scottish multi-disciplinary artist whose work encompasses drawing, digital collage, film and video installation,...
BBC OS Conversations: Living with ADHD
27 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The exact cause is unknown, but the mental health condition ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) affects millions of lives around the world...
Heart and Soul: Evangelical or political Christianity?
26 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the founding principles of the United States is that religion and politics, church and state, are separate. Yet today in America religious beli...
Germany’s forests under threat
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Drought and hotter summers are killing Germany’s spruce forests. They’re a staple of the timber industry but are proving unable to cope with the c...
Global dancefloor: Salvador
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brazil has one of the highest rates of trans and gender-diverse homicides in the world, and almost three-quarters of people killed each year are eithe...
Global dancefloor: Beirut
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Frank McWeeny heads to Beirut to meet the nightlife community behind the Grand Factory club, and explores how underground culture here survives even d...
Beirut: Life in the unliveable city
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is it like to live through the collapse of your country, in a city you love and cannot bear to leave? Lina Mounzer is a writer and translator liv...
In the Studio: Lawrence Abu Hamdan
22 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an artist and forensic investigator of sound. He describes himself as a 'private ear’, listening to, with and on behalf of pe...
Iraq: Generation Invasion
21 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years after the US-led invasion, four young Iraqis recall life under foreign occupation and share their hopes and fears for the future. Sheddin...
Introducing The Explanation
20 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On a mission to make sense of the world. A new podcast, with hosts John Simpson and Claire Graham. Episodes released weekly from 20 May 2023.
BBC OS Conversations: Long Covid
20 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest figures suggest that nearly seven million people have died due to Covid - although the true figure is l...
Heart and Soul: The emerging Muslim 'manosphere'
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Britain, the growth of Islam is being driven by a younger population, born and brought up in the United Kingdom. This includes BBC reporter Rahil S...
Hard times in the Big Easy
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
New Orleans is the murder capital of the United States: researchers into 2022’s crime figures say it suffered more homicides per capita than any oth...
Bonus: The Lazarus Heist
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing season 2 of an original podcast about hackers and North Korea. They’re back - in fact the criminals never went away. Season 2 begins at ...
In the Studio: Sir Lenny Henry
16 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sir Lenny Henry's new one man show - August in England gives an insight into the lives impacted by the Windrush scandal. In 2017, thousands of legal r...
Generation Change: Battling for a sustainable environment
15 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Babita Sharma meets young people from around the world working to fight climate change, including a Kenyan engineer who has designed a solar powered f...
Generation Change: Equality in science and technology
15 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Megha Mohan talks to young people working to diversify science, technology, engineering and maths - fields that will be crucial to the future of our p...
Generation Change: Tackling taboos around organ donation
15 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Babita Sharma talks to young people who are trying to save lives by tackling taboos around organ donation in countries including India and the UK. She...
Generation Change: Fighting hunger
15 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Babita Sharma meets young people trying to solve global food problems, including a Lebanese man who worked to feed people after the deadly bomb blast ...
BBC OS Conversations with Russians
13 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In recent days, Russia staged its annual Victory Day military parade, celebrating the defeating of Nazi Germany during World War Two, which ended in 1...
Heart and Soul: Ticket to Taiwan
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Cindy Sui discovers how the Chè-lâm Presbyterian Church in central Taipei has been helping Hong Kong activists who have fled to Taiwan since the int...
Searching for my son
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the chaos following Turkey’s devastating earthquake in February, Omar was separated from his son Ahmed after both were pulled alive from the coll...
In the Studio: Kevin Kwan
08 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians, has made Los Angeles his home. The city is rich with art, fashio...
BBC OS Conversations: Escaping from Sudan
06 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The fighting between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces started around three weeks ago. Since then, the UN estimates that mo...
Heart and Soul: Will the real Shaman stand up?
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
According to the national census, the number of British people who say they follow Shamanism as a religion has risen twelvefold in the space of 10 yea...
Kenya's Free Money Experiment
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of Kenyan villagers are being given free cash as part of a huge trial being run by an American non-profit, GiveDirectly. Why? Some aid organ...
The making of King Charles
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charles III waited a very long time to become King. Since his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, he filled his life with activity, pursuing deepl...
In the Studio: Tinuke Craig
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The acclaimed British theatre director, Tinuke Craig embarks on her opera debut at the English National Opera with Blue, a tale of police violence in ...
The day I met the King
30 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
People from all over the globe remember their meetings with King Charles III over the years. They include Dr Joe McInnes who took the former Prince fo...
BBC OS Conversations: Fentanyl in the United States
29 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fentanyl is a potentially deadly synthetic opioid. The other month, a drug enforcement official in the country described it as the single deadliest dr...
Heart and Soul: The Church's slave plantation, part two
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Robert Beckford explores the Christian understanding of reparations. He speaks to Christians in Barbados who say reparations from the Church...
Laos: the most bombed country on earth
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
50 years after the last US bombs fell on Laos, they’re still killing and maiming. In an effort to stop the march of communism, between 1964 and 197...
Miss Marple returns
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Agatha Christie is the world's most translated author, with her work being available in over 100 languages. And one of her most beloved characters, Mi...
After the earthquake: Turkey’s election
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We travel to Turkey's Anatolian heartland to find out whether the region which helped propel President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to power in the early 2000...
4. Murder in Mayfair: The home front
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“He’s a coward, he’s not a man.” Martine’s mum passes judgement on Farouk. A final push for answers takes Nawal to Yemen and Norway. And que...
3. Murder in Mayfair: The flight
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“He won’t wake up...I think he’s dead.” What Farouk did in the hours after Martine died and the bridges he burned to get away. Nawal’s inves...
2. Murder in Mayfair: Martine
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Friends panic when "street-smart" Martine fails to come home. Her family scrambles to help as a surprise move on Facebook makes something “click” ...
1. Murder in Mayfair: Finding Farouk
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The hunt for the suspected killer of 23-year-old Norwegian student Martine Vik Magnussen, whose body was found buried under rubble in a London basemen...
Caught in Sudan's conflict
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
To live in Sudan is to have experienced violence, protest, dictatorship, political instability and upheaval. But the scale of fighting during the last...
Heart and Soul: The Church's slave plantation, part one
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What are the consequences of the Church of England's historic slave plantations in Barbados today? Theologian Robert Beckford considers why and how th...
Leaving Sri Lanka
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Record numbers are fleeing the island in the wake of a brutal economic crisis – perhaps one in twenty five Sri Lankans left last year alone. Some 30...
Introducing: Murder in Mayfair
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Coming soon: The hunt for the suspected killer of 23-year-old Norwegian student Martine Vik Magnussen, whose body was found buried under rubble in a L...
The hidden caste codes of Silicon Valley
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sam, Harsha and Siddhant are tech workers of Indian descent, who all say they have experienced discrimination in corporate America. They are not being...
In the Studio: Erica Whyman: Directing Hamnet
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Maggie O’Farrell’s historical novel Hamnet was published in 2020 to great critical acclaim, winning the Women's Prize. It tells the story of a gif...
The ghost ship
15 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the Persian gulf, a powerful storm appears to sink an oil tanker, prompting a dramatic Royal Navy rescue. But six weeks later, the same tanker caus...
BBC OS Conversations: Living with multiple sclerosis
15 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A ground-breaking new medical trial has begun in the UK aimed at slowing the progress of multiple sclerosis. The Octopus trial is looking into whether...
Heart and Soul: Sikhism’s lost song
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the heyday of the Sikh Empire, Kirtan (Sikh hymns) were performed using stringed instruments such as the sarangi, rabab and taus. The rich, complex...
Gran Chaco - Paraguay’s vanishing forest
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Gran Chaco Forest is Latin America’s second largest ecosystem. It is a mix of hot and arid scrublands, forests and wetlands, part of the River P...
In the Studio: Telling the John Hume story
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Beyond Belief: The Life and Mission of John Hume is a new musical drama about the Irish politician who was one of the architects of the Northern Irela...
Deep Waters: Container ships
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Container ships are the monsters of the seas - the very biggest are almost half a kilometre long and piled high with up to 20,000 huge boxes. At any o...
Deep Waters: Sanctions and the new 'dark' fleet
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Shipping has long been one of the most opaque of global industries. Now many operations in the oil sector, which accounts for nearly a third of all se...
Deep Waters: The hidden world of global shipping
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bulk carriers are the ships that keep the modern world going - like the MV Raeda and the MV Olivian Confidence carrying grain from Ukraine to Turkey, ...
OS Conversations: Guns in America
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Funerals have been taking place for victims of the latest mass shooting in the United States. Six people – including three children aged 9 – were ...
Heart and Soul: Clergy in cartel land
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mexico has become the most dangerous country in the world to be a Catholic priest. In the past 15 years, 50 were killed in narco-related violence. And...
Vienna: Getting housing right
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Affordable housing is in widespread crisis. Many cities around the world have failed to build enough houses with good design and make living in them a...
In the Studio: Nikita Gill
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The poet Nikita Gill has written several volumes of poetry, and enjoys engaging poetically with her audience using social media. Her work often explor...
Being gay in Africa
01 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s illegal in around 30 countries in Africa to be in a same-sex relationship and recently there’s been political debate in places such as Uganda...
Heart and Soul: Purity to nudity
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gwen was brought up as a strict evangelical Christian. She was taught that women needed to control the way they dressed and acted to control the behav...
Finland’s uneasy relationship with its neighbour
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How has Finland survived so long as an independent European country, up close to Russia, its aggressive neighbour? Over the decades it’s learnt to ...
Deep Waters: The hidden world of global shipping
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bulk carriers are the ships that keep the modern world going - like the MV Raeda and the MV Olivian Confidence carrying grain from Ukraine to Turkey, ...
Iraqis and the consequences of the Iraq War
25 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In March 2003, the United States led an invasion of Iraq that would topple Saddam Hussein's regime, but would have far-reaching consequences for the n...
My hijab or my sport
24 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It took Salimata Sylla three hours to get to the away fixture she was due to play with her basketball team mates from the Parisian suburb of Aubervill...
Killer drug: Fentanyl in the US
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is destroying lives all over the United States. Manufactured illegally and at a huge profit by drug cartels in Mexico, i...
Blind faith: Do genetic eye disease ‘treatments' work?
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
BBC journalist Ramadan Younes investigates the world of genetic eye disease ‘treatments’, where some practitioners claim to cure the incurable. Li...
Can technology save democracy?
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The storming of the Brazilian Parliament and Congress by the supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro came almost two years to the day that D...
A choice of horrors
18 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the aftermath of the disastrous war in Iraq, the lesson seemed clear: the West should never intervene in foreign conflicts. But then came the Syria...
Asian-Americans
18 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Everything Everywhere All at Once ensured it was a historic night at the Oscars. And in doing so it put a spotlight on Asian Americans. The film, whic...
Killer drug: The Mexico connection
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl....
The boat smugglers
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The recent rise in migrant boat crossings between France and the UK is being fuelled, in part, by more sophisticated methods gangs are using to source...
Somebody is watching me
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2020, when the so-called Nth Room scandal revealed how women and children were lured and blackmailed to make explicit videos for distribution th...
Life after the earthquakes
11 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It is a month since earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Official figures suggest that more than 45,000 people were killed in Turkey; and more than 6,000...
Ireland’s Urban Horses
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ireland’s housing estates continue to ring to the sound of horses with patches of grass used for grazing and garages as stables. Horses used to be ...
The long haul of long Covid
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Three years after the official declaration of a pandemic, 65 million people - one in 10 who had Covid-19 - still have symptoms. Some are so ill they a...
Migrants
04 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A wooden boat lies broken and wrecked off the coast of Italy after it hit rocks and sank. On board were around 200 people, mostly migrants from countr...
Nigeria's battle against bandits
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the last few years, powerful criminal gangs have terrorised a swathe of north west and central Nigeria. From camps in the forest, gangs of bandits ...
Flying Seagulls: Child's play
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Flying Seagull Project travels the world with a simple goal: to enable and empower children in warzones and refugee camps to play. Theirs is a rip...
No place like 'Nam
25 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
March 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the departure of the last American combat troops from Vietnam. Vietnamese journalist Nga Pham uncovers the su...
Women and the war in Ukraine
25 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to tens of thousands of deaths. And it’s estimated around 8 million Ukrainians left the cou...
The Parallel Universe of Russia’s War
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A year on from the invasion of Ukraine, many Russians now inhabit a parallel world that justifies the conflict. How have they been persuaded to suppor...
Fishrot: Clear waters, murky dealings
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Two countries a world apart are linked by a multi-million dollar corruption scandal, and it is all about fish. At one end, the southern African nation...
Nigeria elections
18 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ahead of the upcoming general election in Nigeria, Alan Kasujja hosts a special conversation from the commercial capital of Lagos. He sat down with ar...
On the frontline of Brexit
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
No part of the United Kingdom has felt the impact of Brexit more strongly than Northern Ireland. Home to the country's only land border with the Europ...
America's first black bank
14 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Freedman’s Bank was established in 1865 after the abolition of slavery and the Civil War. The Bank was designed to help newly freed African-Amer...
World Wide Waves '23: The sounds of community radio
11 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For World Radio Day, we celebrate four vibrant community radio stations on four continents. Northern Malawi’s Rumphi FM supports the Tumbuka tribe w...
The earthquake in Turkey and Syria
11 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We have been hearing from people in Turkey and Syria since the earthquake struck the region on Monday. Three survivors tell us about their escape from...
The great German sausage crisis
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Germany in 2002 there were some 19,000 small, neighbourhood butchers’ shops. They made and sold, among other things, that “great emblem of Germ...
The travelling speech therapist
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When speech disorders affect children, it is speech therapists who assist in helping them find their voice, but therapists are rare and it is thought ...
Living with power cuts
04 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, millions of people live with daily electricity blackouts. In recent days in South Africa, protesters – angry that the electricity ...
Uruguay’s Cash Cow
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Cattle are part of Uruguay’s DNA. There are around 4 cows to every one of their tiny 3.5 million population of people and beef is their main export....
The Night Witches of World War Two
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Orna Merchant learns how, during World War Two, a desperate Soviet Union created three all-female aerial combat units. The most celebrated of these wa...
A short history of sadness
28 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do humans cope with sadness? Is it something to be avoided at all costs or part of the human condition? Should we dwell on our sadness, or flee fr...
Babies and families
28 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Several countries are experiencing a fall in the number of babies being born and this has potentially serious consequences. Japan’s Prime Minister, ...
Iran Protests: Tales from the frontline
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why did people take to the streets, risking arrest and a barrage of bullets? After protests turned violent and hundreds of people were killed, four Ir...
Sierra Leone's children of war
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2002 photojournalist Caroline Irby and former BBC reporter Tom McKinley arrived in Sierra Leone to cover the fallout from the country’s brutal co...
The Black Book
21 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union swept over vast areas of Ukraine and Belorussia from the summer of 1941, over three million Jews were deliber...
Yiddish glory: Jewish refugees in Central Asia
21 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During World War Two, approximately 1.6 million Soviet, Polish and Romanian Jews survived by escaping to Soviet Central Asia and Siberia, avoiding imm...
Afghan women
21 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Since the Taliban returned to power some 18 months ago, women in Afghanistan have been removed from nearly all areas of public life. They are barred f...