The Documentary Podcast

Being black in Italy

24 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dickens Olewe meets Italy’s first and only black senator, Tony Iwobi, and hears how a new generation of black Italians are fighting to claim their p...

Northern Ireland 1969: Battle lines

23 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ruth Sanderson grew up in Northern Ireland, yet never really understood how the Troubles started. Although the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement effective...

Looking for love: The Zoroastrian way

22 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Zoroastrian community has given the world Freddie Mercury, produced some of India’s richest businessmen and practises one of the world’s oldes...

Super Sisters

20 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1979 a young girl named Melissa Rich asked her mother Lois why there were no women trading cards. So Lois decided to produce her own set called “...

Argentina’s ‘white gold’ rush

17 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Are lithium-powered electric vehicles as ‘green’ as we think they are? With the advent of electric cars, manufacturers tell us we’re racing towa...

The Gospel of Wealth

16 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What should billionaires do with their money? The world’s greatest philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie said they should give it all away. Andrew Carnegi...

My personal history of sormeh

15 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The eyes have always been a focal point of Persian beauty for men and women and they have always been embellished with sormeh, or thick black eyeliner...

Cuba's digital revolution

13 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A revolution is underway in Cuba. The country’s communist leaders, who normally retain tight control of the media, have encouraged Cubans to become ...

Nigeria: sex for grades

10 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

University lecturers sexually harassing and blackmailing their students. It's a problem which plagues West Africa but it's almost never proven. Until ...

Translating for mum and dad

09 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Across the UK, in supermarkets, hospitals, council houses and solicitors’ offices, children and young people are doing vital unpaid work: interpreti...

Passport to paradise

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Citizenship is changing; and half the world’s governments are making money through citizenship schemes. In Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific Island Nation, a ...

Undercover with the clerics: Iraq’s secret sex trade

03 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Muslim men and women are forbidden to sleep together outside marriage, but in Iraq, it’s possible for men to find a way round this obstacle to sexua...

How to buy your own country

01 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Citizenship is changing; and half the world’s governments are making money through citizenship schemes. We investigate the booming trade in passport...

America's child brides

29 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A tense debate is taking place in states across America. At what age should someone be allowed to marry? Currently in 48 out of 50 states a child can ...

Chile’s Stolen Babies

26 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A Chilean man - adopted at birth and sent overseas - searches for the mother forced to give him up. He is among thousands now finding out the truth ab...

The imam and the artist

24 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On 27 September 1969, Imam Abdullah Haron – an outspoken Muslim cleric in South Africa – died in police detention. Abdullah Haron was the only Mus...

World War Two: The economic battle

22 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The story of World War Two is usually told in terms of heroism on the battlefield, but perhaps the most important struggle was the economic battle. Ac...

The bitter song of the hazelnut

19 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Every August tens of thousands of Kurdish migrant workers, including children, toil long hours for a pittance in the mountains of northern Turkey pick...

Living with leprosy

17 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When Aleks Krotoski was six years old she lived in a world surrounded by people with leprosy, or Hansen's Disease as it's officially known. Both her d...

Colombia’s kamikaze cyclists

12 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Precipitous mountain roads, specially-modified bikes, and deadly consequences. Simon Maybin spends time with the young men who race down the steep roa...

Hearing me

10 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

(This programme contains audio effects that may cause discomfort to people living with hearing conditions. There is a modified version of this program...

Robert Mugabe: A life

06 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Audrey Brown looks back at the life of the former Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, who has died in Singapore aged 95.

Marawi: The story of the Philippines’ Lost City

05 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Marawi in the southern Philippines is a ghost town. In 2017, it was taken under siege for five months by supporters of Islamic State who wanted to est...

Detours 5: The last cola in the desert

04 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A small Costa Rican surfing city is the unexpected final home for people leaving Asia and Africa in search of a better life in the US. Hosted by Acade...

Detours 4: Imran is stateless

04 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Imran fled violence in Myanmar – now he is in detention on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, with no papers and no idea what will happen to him. Hos...

Detours 3: Eighteen Greeks a week

04 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Follow the dead bodies – 18 each week – that travel along the mountain passes in northern Greece for cremation in another country. Hosted by Acade...

Detours 2: Where the homeless elephants go

04 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Wild elephants surround a village in Assam, India. And they’re hungry. Spend time with the night watch, trying to keep people safe. Hosted by Academ...

Detours 1: Doctor Fake News

04 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Fake news pays. Medical student Elena ran out of money, so she joined her friends in Veles, North Macedonia, writing fake stories for cash. Hosted by ...

Michelle Bachelet: Chile's first female president

03 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Michelle Bachelet's father died after being detained and tortured during the first year of General Pinochet's dictatorial rule in Chile. More than 40 ...

Museum of Lost Objects: The fire that scorched Brazil’s history

01 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been a year since Brazil’s National Museum burned down in a fire. Not only was its collection one of the most extraordinary in the world, but...

Lethal Force in Rio’s Favelas

29 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Brazil’s party capital, Rio de Janeiro, is witnessing a killing spree. Nothing new there, you might think – it’s long suffered from violent crim...

Why Woodstock still matters

29 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Woodstock myth is a potent and evocative symbol of the '60s utopian hippie dream – the ultimate example of the unifying power of music, peace an...

Afghan Star 2: Music, tradition and the Taliban

28 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The TV talent show Afghan Star has been running for 14 years, and has never been won by a woman singer. This year one of the two finalists is an 18-ye...

Maria Ressa: The Filipino-American journalist combating fake news

27 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Maria Ressa, the Filipino-American journalist and author was included in Time's Person of the Year 2018 as one of a collection of journalists from aro...

My very extended family

24 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Two years ago Julia, a high school student from Ohio, received an email from a woman in New York she had never met, claiming that her daughter and Jul...

Romania's killer roads

22 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Everybody in Romania knows someone who has died in a road accident. The country has the highest road death rate in the European Union – twice the EU...

Afghan Star 1: A TV talent show

21 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Sahar Zand is in Kabul for the finals of Afghan Star, a TV talent show that is on the front line of the fight to keep music alive in Afghanistan, foll...

Her Story 2: Betty Bigombe, Ugandan peace negotiator

20 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Betty Bigombe spent much of her career trying to negotiate peace with the notorious warlord Joseph Kony. She was born in northern Uganda as one of 11 ...

Barbuda: Storms, recovery and ‘land grabs’

15 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Who will shape the future of the hurricane-hit, tropical isle of Barbuda? In 2017, category-5 hurricane Irma devastated much of Barbuda’s ‘paradi...

Peterloo: The massacre that changed Britain

14 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On 16 August 1819, troops charged the crowds in St Peter's Field - 18 people lost their lives and around 700 were injured. Within days, the press were...

Her Story 1: Vaira Viķe-Freiberga, the first female president of Latvia

13 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Vaira Viķe-Freiberga became the first female president of Latvia in 1999, just eight months after returning to the country she left 54 years earlier....

Genoa's Broken Bridge

08 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

An icon of Italian design; a centrepiece of a community; a tragedy waiting to happen? When the Morandi bridge opened in 1967, it was one of the longes...

Black girls don't swim

06 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Seren Jones swam competitively for 13 years in the UK and in the US collegiate system. But in that time she only ever saw six other black girls in the...

America's Hospital Emergency

01 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A small town goes on life-support after its lone hospital closes. The story of Jamestown, Tennessee, recorded in the emotional hours and days after it...

The spy of Raspberry Falls

30 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin Mallory lived a double life - he helped people on his street with yard work, went to church and showed off his dogs. Yet at home he communicated...

When Africa meets China

28 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone knows how China is changing Africa but what is less well known is how Africa is changing China. Linda Yueh uncovers the growing number of Afr...

The Spy in Your Pocket

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Anti-obesity campaigners in Mexico, human rights advocates in London, and friends of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi all claim they’ve been ...

The Superlinguists: Monolingual societies

23 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Calder meets speakers of indigenous languages (like Welsh in Britain), of dialects (like Moselfrankish in Germany) and vernaculars (like African...

Music to land on the Moon by

21 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landings, Beatriz De La Pava researches how real life events are reflected in the lyrics of popular songs, a...

Tuku Music

20 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Oliver Mtukudzi was loved by people all over the world for his unique melodies – and by Zimbabweans for the messages of hope contained in his lyrics...

Bitter brew

18 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

With the rise in ethical consumerism, Assignment explores the hidden suffering of tea workers in Africa. Attacked because of their tribal identity, re...

The Superlinguists: Multilingual societies

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is it like to live in a place where you have to speak several languages to get by? Simon Calder travels to India, where a top university only tea...

The Dyatlov Pass mystery

14 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1959, a group of nine Russian students met a mysterious death in the Ural mountains. Experienced cross-country skiers, their bodies were found scat...

Germany’s climate change frontline

11 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The beautiful Hambacher Forest is disappearing. Over the past four decades, it has been slowly devoured by a voracious coalmine in the German Rhinelan...

The Superlinguists: How to learn a language

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Calder asks how to go about acquiring a new tongue. He gets tips from those who know - innovative teachers and polyglots. The answers are surpri...

Denmark's Migrant Ghettos

04 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Denmark's efforts to better integrate its migrant population are attracting controversy at home, and abroad. Twenty nine housing districts, known as '...

The Superlinguists: The polyglots

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Calder meets people who keep learning new languages not because they have to, but because they want to. What motivates them? Situations like thi...

Interview with the Dalai Lama

30 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a wide ranging interview the Dalai Lama talks to the BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan about President Trump and his America First agenda, Brexit, the EU...

Training to save the treasures of Iraq - part two

30 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Shaimaa Khalil is reunited with eight women from Mosul after their training in London. She hears about the work the archaeologists are doing now to as...

Marching to the coolest beat

29 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

An unlikely pageant takes place every year in the American Rust Belt town of Dayton Ohio. Three hundred teams of high school and college students have...

Marseille: France’s Crumbling City

27 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On the 5th November last year, two apartment buildings collapsed in Marseille’s historic centre. Eight people died in a tragedy which has sent shock...

The magic fingers of Rashid Khan

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rashid Khan was born in Nangarhar in Eastern Afghanistan in 1998 but his early life was spent in a refugee camp in Pakistan away from the conflict tha...

Training to save the treasures of Iraq

23 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For three years Mosul was occupied by the extremist group known as the Islamic State. During the occupation which lasted until July 2017, the group de...

Dying from mistrust in Ukraine

20 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Until recently, health authorities in developed countries appeared to be well on the way to wiping out measles – a highly contagious disease that’...

Vaccination: The global picture

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Wellcome Trust reveals how attitudes towards vaccinations vary around the world in its Global Monitor. The most vaccine-sceptical country is Franc...

Destination education

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Despite the political uncertainty in the UK at the moment the country’s reputation for top-class education, if you can afford it, is still on the ri...

Remembering Afghanistan's Elvis

16 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ahmad Zahir with his dark shock of hair, sultry voice and overwhelming stage presence more than earned the nickname "The Afghan Elvis". He remains Afg...

Morocco’s hash trail to Europe

13 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Amsterdam’s cafes, you can buy hashish openly, over the counter. But go around back to see how the drug comes in, and you’ll get a lot of smoke...

Falling Rock

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jacob Rosales, a 20-year-old student at Yale, takes a closer look at some of the varied challenges facing Native American young people today. With ala...

Ticket to a new life

09 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ana is a winner in the annual Pacific Access Category ballot. It is a visa lottery. Each year, Tonga gets up to 250 places, Fiji the same, and there a...

Praying for petrol

08 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a country infamous for its drug cartels, Mexico has another booming black market - petrol. Starting out as just a few individuals tapping lines to ...

Turkey’s political football

06 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Football in Turkey's biggest city always means colour, passion and noise, but this season has an added edge. The big three Istanbul clubs, which have ...

Don't hide my son

04 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Tanzanian mothers forced to hide their children with Down syndrome due to social stigma and their defiant determination to change this.

Sudan’s white-coated uprising

30 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Sudan’s doctors on the frontline. When ongoing street protests finally pushed Sudan’s repressive president from power last month, it was the count...

After the boats

29 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

During the migrant crisis, thousands of Nigerian women were trafficked into Italy for sexual exploitation. In 2016 alone, 11,000 made the perilous jou...

Beyond Borders: Seeking safety in Sweden and Germany

26 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For over five years, British-Lebanese journalist Zahra Mackaoui has been following the stories of a group of Syrians, who have scattered across the wo...

Amar: Alone in the world

25 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

He was known as “the little boy who lost everything”. In 1991, Amar Kanim’s disfigured face was shown on newspaper front pages around the world,...

The undercover migrant

23 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The extraordinary story of an undercover migrant and his ‘secret spectacles’.When Azeteng, a young man from rural Ghana, heard stories on the radi...

Robots on the road

21 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The world’s biggest car makers and technology companies are investing billions of dollars in autonomous vehicles. They believe it is just a few year...

Beyond Borders: Seeking safety in Canada and Lebanon

19 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Syrian war has created one of the largest human displacements in history – with millions of people on the move seeking safety. For over five yea...

Me, the refugee

19 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is it like to be taken away from your childhood home, to be brought to a strange new country where you are locked away? That is what happened to ...

Bolivia’s Mennonites, Justice and Renewal

16 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 2009, Mennonite women in a far-flung Bolivian colony reported mass rape. Now leaders of this insular, Christian community with its roots in Europe ...

Slavery's untold story

14 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Oklahoma, Tayo Popoola discovers the story of the slaves owned by the Cherokee Indian tribe. Since the emancipation of the slaves in the 19th Centu...

Left behind

12 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This is the flipside of migration. Migrants make headlines all the time, but what about those they leave behind? The so-called ‘motherless villages’...

Guyana - bracing for the oil boom

08 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

South America’s second poorest nation is about to get very rich - but will the prosperity be shared? A series of oil discoveries in Guyanese waters ...

The populist curtain: Austria and Italy

08 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Political scientist Yascha Mounk travels through countries which were on the West of the former Iron Curtain. Graz in Austria is the birthplace of Arc...

When the things start to talk

07 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The internet of things, devices that communicate with each other across networks are becoming increasingly part of everyday life – controlling the h...

The crossing

02 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s over two years since the authorities in France closed down the Jungle, the large migrant camp in Calais on the French coast. At its height more...

The populist curtain: Poland and Hungary

01 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Political scientist Yascha Mounk travels from Szczecin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, the route of the former "Iron Curtain" and finds out ...

Dark fibres and the frozen north

30 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If data is the new oil, are data centres the new oil rigs? Far into the north of Norway are some of the biggest data centres in the world. As a more i...

Flat 113 at Grenfell Tower

28 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in West London; it caused 72 deaths and more than 70 others were inju...

Bangladesh versus Yaba

25 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Thousands of Bangladeshi addicts are hooked on Yaba - a mix of methamphetamine and caffeine. It's a powerful drug that gives big bangs for small bucks...

America's friends

24 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From a US president who is turning the world upside down – with a relish for dismantling global agreements – the message is clear: it’s America ...

South Africa's Born Frees at 25

23 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There's a generation in South Africa who are known as the Born Frees. They were born in 1994, the year of the elections in which black citizens were a...

10, 9, 8, 7

21 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Taking place over just eight months, four perilous and eventful space missions laid the foundations for a successful Moon landing. Each pushed the bou...

Restoring Brazil's National Treasure

18 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Brazilians wept when their 200-year-old National Museum went up in flames last September. Twenty million items, many of them irreplaceable, were thoug...

Snooker: Young, cool and Chinese

16 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Once a game associated with the backrooms of British pubs, snooker is now a global sport, with most of its growth coming from China. Seven-time world ...

Mumbai Mirror

14 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As the 2019 Indian election campaign kicks off, BBC World Service follows journalists from the daily Mumbai Mirror newspaper to get under the skin of ...

New York City’s pirates of the air

13 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As the workday winds down across New York, you can tune in to a clandestine world of unlicensed radio stations; a cacophonous sonic wonder of the city...

Order! Order!

13 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The BBC’s parliamentary correspondent Mark D’Arcy reviews the bizarre twists and turns of the extraordinary and chaotic past few weeks of debates ...