The Documentary Podcast

Ukraine’s frontline bakery revisited

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lucy Ash catches up with a warzone bakery comforting people in an east Ukrainian town. She visited in 2017 to tell the story of a small enterprise tha...

No satisfaction

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sex is everywhere – in popular music and TV programmes, in toothpaste adverts and on social media. Yet in real life, regular sex no longer seems to ...

Women building peace: Ethiopia

06 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Women working to help communities caught up in Ethiopia’s brutal war talk about the immense challenges they face on the ground, and we hear the stor...

The Winter Olympics

05 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Winter Games are officially underway as Beijing becomes the first city to host both the summer and winter Olympics. Host Karnie Sharp brings us a ...

Joe Rogan, Spotify and Covid

05 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have asked Spotify to remove their music from the platform. They have criticised the music streaming servic...

World of Wisdom:The passion for life

05 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The pandemic has caused many people to reassess their lives...but self-reflection is a journey that can bring challenges. Annie, from Australia, feels...

Dangerous liaisons in Sinaloa

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Mexican state of Sinaloa is synonymous with drug trafficking. With the profits from organised crime a driver of the local economy, the tentacles o...

Pakistan's long game

01 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Owen Bennett-Jones examines how the government in Tehran outwitted the United States in Iraq, which resulted in Tehran having more influence in Baghda...

Women building peace: Bosnia-Herzegovina

30 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A woman born after her mother was raped during the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s says the struggle for reparation and reconciliation continues 25 year...

Music that survived the Nazis: Part two

29 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Featuring extraordinarily rare recordings, historian Shirli Gilbert presents this new history of life and music under Nazi tyranny. This episode focus...

Women in Ukraine and Russia

29 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There is much international focus on the possibility of a Russian military invasion of its neighbour Ukraine. US President Joe Biden has spoken of “...

The rising cost of living

29 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The cost of food and fuel has risen globally. The pandemic has played some part in it but there are other reasons too. Ros Atkins examines what’s be...

World of Wisdom: Judging ourselves harshly

29 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Can we learn to let go of negative thoughts that are bringing us down? Sometimes it can feel as if nothing in life is going the way it should and we j...

Hunting the darknet dealers

27 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The high stakes cat and mouse game between police and darknet drug dealers. Police in the UK say they are finally turning the tide on drug dealers sel...

Fighting tobacco in Zambia

25 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Zambia, smoking is on the rise. One woman wants to change that. BBC global health correspondent Tulip Mazumdar follows the story of Brenda Chitindi...

Women Building Peace: Afghanistan

23 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Lama", a student in Afghanistan who fears for her safety since the Taliban takeover, speaks to the country's former education minister Rangina Hamidi...

Music that survived the Nazis: Part one

22 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There is a common misconception that music under the Nazis was either ‘Degenerate Music’ to be suppressed or propaganda music that was officially ...

Coronavirus: Family arguments

22 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Health professionals will tell you that Covid-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives across the globe yet some people continue to doubt their safety...

China's Zero-Covid Dilemma

22 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As coronavirus restrictions begin to ease around the world, China is sticking with its Zero-Covid policy. But questions have been raised about how sus...

World of Wisdom: Feeling used

22 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When we feel taken advantage of by people, it can be very hurtful and leave us feeling bitter. Giving a lot to our friends can come with the expectati...

Hunting Syria's war criminals

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine walking down a street in a European capital and meeting your torturer. For many Syrian refugees fleeing war and human rights abuses, Europe wa...

Silence would be treason

15 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa from prison in Nigeria to an Irish nun in the run up to his execution in November 1995. Smuggled out of prison in b...

Coronavirus: Athletes and teachers

15 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The vaccination and visa controversy around Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open tournament has made global headlines all week. It has also put focus...

Djokovic, sport and vaccine mandates

15 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Covid vaccination status of men's number one tennis player, Novak Djokovic, has caused a political row. Ros Atkins looks at what Djokovic's case c...

World of Wisdom: Being your true self

15 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Being the real you can be difficult, especially if it means upsetting your family. Folake from Benin tries to be a ‘good girl’ and avoids taking d...

Montenegro’s Chinese road

13 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been called the priciest piece of tarmac in the world. In 2014 the government of Montenegro signed a contract with a state-owned Chinese compan...

Forest fear

08 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Amazon is the largest area of rainforest on earth. Bursting with life, it provides us with a wealth of resources. But for each of its potential ri...

Coronavirus: The vaccinators

08 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The rapid spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is leading to record infection levels in several countries, and vaccination is a key part of the f...

The storming of the US Capitol: what happened next

08 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 has been described by President Biden as a dark day in US history. A year on since the attack, Ros Atkins exami...

World of Wisdom: Precious time in later life

08 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It can be hard to choose how to spend our precious time. Imam Jamal Rahman, a Sufi spiritual teacher, offers a joyful perspective to Rebecca from the ...

Turkey's crazy project

06 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A giant new canal for the world’s biggest ships is the most ambitious engineering plan yet proposed by Turkey’s President Erdogan, whose massive i...

Gone but not forgotten: Syria's missing persons

04 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Wafa Mustafa hasn't heard from her dad since he went missing in July 2013. She, like tens of thousands of others in her position, believes he is being...

A Wish for Afghanistan: The advocate and the musicians

02 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Another chance to hear from some of the BBC's acclaimed series examining the seismic events shaping Afghanistan before and after this year's return to...

A Pyrotechnic History of Humanity: The future

01 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

ustin Rowlatt looks at the monumental challenge of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. Solar and wind could meet all of humanity’s energy needs, but...

BBC OS Conversations: Tracking the pandemic

01 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Two years after the first cases of a mysterious new virus were reported from China, host Nuala McGovern brings together experts in Switzerland, India ...

World of Wisdom: Social distance

01 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The pandemic has meant stopping so many of the everyday things we used to do, including not hugging and kissing others. For Susanna from Italy, not be...

Peru's left behind children

30 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Peru has been battered by Covid-19. It has the highest known death toll in the world per capita. But behind the figures there’s another hidden pande...

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

26 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Reflecting on the life of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African priest who became a prominent figure in the fight against apartheid, and was awar...

A Wish for Afghanistan: The Talib and the president

26 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A chance to hear once again from the BBC's acclaimed series examining the seismic events shaping Afghanistan before and after this year's return to po...

A Pyrotechnic History of Humanity: Fossil fuels

25 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Justin Rowlatt looks at the bonanza provided by coal, oil and gas in just the last two centuries. Our modern comfortable way of life is only made poss...

MTV@40

25 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early '80s the idea of a television channel showing nothing but music videos 24 hours a day was completely revolutionary. It posed the first re...

Coronavirus: Reporting Covid

25 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vaccines, vaccine hesitancy, Delta and Omicron – what is it like reporting on the pandemic? Host Nuala McGovern links up with journalists in Brazil,...

World of Wisdom: Happiness in a hard situation

25 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do you find inner happiness when life in your home country is very hard? Eduardo is a young man in Venezuela facing daily struggles in his life. H...

Afghan girls given a sporting chance

24 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Female athletes faced brutal choices as allied forces withdrew from Afghanistan - to flee their homes and country or to stay and possibly abandon all ...

The runaway maids of Oman

23 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Hundreds of young women from Sierra Leone, West Africa, have been trapped in the Arabian sultanate of Oman, desperate to get home. Promised work in sh...

CODA: I'm the thumb in my family

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Humera Iqbal enters the remarkable world of Children of Deaf Adults, or CODAs. At a young age they take on the mighty responsibility of interpreting f...

Agriculture: The solar energy revolution

19 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Justin Rowlatt explores what was the original solar energy revolution – harnessing the sun’s rays to grow food. Some 10,000 years ago our ancestor...

Parcels of CARE

18 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Seventy-five years ago, when aching hunger dominated people’s lives in post-war Europe, a food parcel seemed like a miracle. Particularly when it ha...

Coronavirus: Threats to health workers

18 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Covid-19 infections in several countries are causing pressures on hospital resources to rise again. At the same time, polarising views persist over va...

What 2021 taught us about Covid

18 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This year started with the focus on Covid-19 vaccine rollouts and ends with the emergence of a new coronavirus variant, Omicron. Ros Atkins looks at h...

World of Wisdom: Recovery

18 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When our bodies recover from a life-threatening illness, it can sometimes be hard for the mind and morale to follow suit. People can even say they res...

The fake bitcoin mine

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

With crypto currencies – like Bitcoin and Troon - booming there’s never been a better time to mine for crypto online. Mines in this context descri...

Fire: The energy revolution

12 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Justin Rowlatt goes right back to the origin of our species two million years ago to explore how the mastery of fire by early humans transformed our m...

Coronavirus: Pandemic PTSD

11 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Several countries are seeing the pressure that a new wave of Covid-19 is placing on their hospitals once more, and they’re reintroducing measures to...

Compulsory Covid vaccinations

11 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The new Omicron variant poses a potential risk of spiralling coronavirus infections globally and governments around the world are putting plans in pla...

Poland’s fractured borderlands

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Thousands of people – mostly migrants from the Middle East - are camped in freezing weather at the Poland-Belarus border. Many have spent thousands ...

Only bleeding: How Swedes opened up about periods

07 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“It’s alright (I’m only bleeding)”. In 2017, these words were emblazoned on the Stockholm subway or tunnelbana, alongside a giant poster of an...

Poison: Jacob Zuma's toxic obsession

04 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jacob Zuma, South Africa's former president, believes the world is out to poison him. He has claimed that the CIA, MI6, local traitors, and perhaps ev...

Coronavirus: Omicron

04 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

At this time of the year, many people traditionally begin to think about coming together for gatherings of family and friends to celebrate events such...

America’s abortion divide

04 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The US Supreme Court has heard arguments in the most important abortion case in a generation. It is the biggest challenge to a 1973 ruling that legali...

Sleepless in Seoul

02 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Korea is one of the most stressed and tired nations on earth, a place where people work and study longer hours than anywhere else. And statistics show...

Internet instigators

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Internet instigators are organising protests and campaigns using social media and other internet tools and apps to promote their causes. Nina Robinson...

Coronavirus: Europe’s unvaccinated

27 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The World Health Organisation has been sounding the alarm about the path of the pandemic in Europe, as Covid infections and deaths continue to rise ac...

Migrant crossings to the UK

27 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

France and Britain are caught up in disagreements over who needs to do what to stop any more people dying on small boats crossing between the two coun...

Reaching for the sky

23 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Memory Sidira is buzzing with excitement as she talks about what she is learning during her course at Malawi’s Drone and Data Academy - the first of...

Regarding the pain of others

20 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

BBC special correspondent Allan Little addresses the gulf between the reality of war and our ability to comprehend it from afar. His mission as a repo...

Coronavirus: Europe

20 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that Europe is once again “at the epicentre” of the Covid pandemic. The WHO reported that deaths fr...

Rising tensions with Russia

20 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

President Putin has said that the West was taking Russia's warnings not to cross its ‘red lines’ too lightly. This comes amid rising tensions betw...

Salmon wars

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sockeye and Chinook salmon make one of the world's great animal migrations, swimming 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean up 6,500 feet into Idaho’s Saw...

Trading tribulation

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

New apps that provide access to stock markets are revolutionising the world of trading, but they are also creating problems. A new generation of trade...

The hack that changed the world

13 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2009, someone broke into the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the UK and stole emails. The material was distributed onlin...

On the Covid ward

13 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Frontline medical teams in the UK have fine-tuned the physical treatment of severely ill Covid patients. But one thing that has gone largely unnoticed...

Climate: Coal mining

13 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Moving away from the use of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas has been a major talking point at the COP 26 climate conference. Two coal mine workers...

The fight for Nazanin’s freedom

13 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The husband of a British-Iranian charity worker held in Iran since 2016 has been on hunger strike again to push for her release. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcl...

Evia’s inferno

11 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

With the UN climate conference in Glasgow drawing to a close Assignment brings us the final programme in a series which has been telling the story of ...

More yield, less field

09 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This year Zimbabwe has had a bumper crop of the staple food, maize. It is only the second time in two decades that it has grown enough food for the wh...

Climate: Civil disobedience

06 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Usually protests against climate change take the form of marches or protests but for some activists this is not enough. Host Nuala McGovern hears from...

Tree planting and climate change

06 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Trees absorb carbon dioxide - the main gas heating the planet - so planting more of them is seen by many as a possible climate change solution. But ho...

The Ahr Valley flood

04 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The worst effects of climate change are often framed as a problem for the future. But for some, the worst has already happened. As world leaders gathe...

A Geochemical HIstory of LIfe on Earth: 5. The Anthropocene

31 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Could human engineering stabilise the Earth's climate and chemistry in the long term? Tim Lenton of Exeter University explains why the Gaia hypothesis...

The Story of Aids: 4. The end of an epidemic?

30 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When President Thabo Mbeki came to power in South Africa in 1999, the country was gripped by an HIV-Aids epidemic - and the president's decision to qu...

Climate: Animals under threat

30 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The changing planet is threatening a number of vulnerable and endangered species, and host Nuala McGovern hears from three experts on polar bears, sno...

Ros Atkins on: The US and China’s climate commitments

30 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ahead of COP26, the big climate change summit in Glasgow, Ros Atkins looks at the climate promises of two of the world’s biggest polluters – the U...

Lytton Burns

28 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The worst effects of climate change are often framed as a problem for the future. But for some, the worst has already happened. As world leaders prepa...

A Geochemical History of Life on Earth: 4. The great chemistry experiment

24 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Justin looks at the period since the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, which had seen a steadily cooling climate - until we humans turned up. What ...

The Story of Aids: 3. Aids denialism in South Africa

23 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Aids began to emerge in the USA and Europe in the 1980s, South Africa was a fractured country, divided by Apartheid. During this time, the ruling...

Climate: Changing seas

23 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As world leaders, scientists and activists prepare for the UN climate change conference in Scotland, host Nuala McGovern hears how sea level rise is a...

Ros Atkins on: The UK’s rising Covid cases

23 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

More than 50,000 Covid cases have been recorded in the UK for the first time since mid-July. Hospital admissions are also rising, however, daily death...

Denmark’s Red Van

21 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A unique project aimed at reducing harm to women selling sex in Copenhagen… Every weekend night in Copenhagen’s red light district of Vesterbro, a...

The lost art of breathing

19 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After recovering from pneumonia for the third time, journalist James Nestor took decisive action to improve his lungs. He questioned why so many human...

A series of unfortunate events

17 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Justin Rowlatt discovers how phosphorus may have held evolution back for a billion years. How plants first colonised the land - precipitating an ice a...

The Story of Aids: 2. Act Up fights back

16 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It began in March of 1987, when the playwright Larry Kramer gave a speech at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York’s West Villag...

World of Wisdom: Forgiveness

16 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Forgiving someone who has hurt us badly can seem impossible. Bearing a grudge can feel like carrying a bag or rocks. Can we learn to move on and forgi...

Climate: Activists

16 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

World leaders, scientists and activists are preparing for next month’s UN climate change summit in Scotland. These talks have been taking place for ...

Ros Atkins on: China-Taiwan tensions

16 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In recent weeks, China has sent a record number of military jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone. The Taiwanese Defence Minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, has...

Russia: The limits of freedom

14 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In August, the BBC’s Moscow correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, was expelled from Russia – a country she’s reported on from the start of Vladimir Pu...

Somalia’s forgotten hostages

12 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The sailors held captive for years, and the man who managed to free them.Somali pirates made millions of dollars hijacking ships and holding their cre...

World Book Café: PEN

11 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

100 years ago English PEN was founded to create a “common meeting ground in every country for all writers.” and it quickly grew into an internatio...

A Geochemical History of Life on Earth: 2. When bacteria ruled the world

10 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Justin explores the Precambrian period: a kind of dark ages, spanning most of our planet's history, but about which we have very few fossil records. W...

World of Wisdom: Hope and children

09 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The pandemic has made many people unsure about the future. Issues such as climate catastrophe have come to seem all the more real. How do we keep hope...