Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsOpening Radio and Podcast...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsFetching podcast shows and categories...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsFetching podcast episodes...
Extraordinary first person stories from around the world
Cassandra Madison and Julia Tinetti met working at the same bar in their 20s and were struck by how similar they looked. Their adoption reco...
Separated from her family and trained as a child soldier, Loung Ung's unbreakable spirit helped her survive Pol Pot’s regime, which killed n...
When 19-year-old Ann from Florida, USA was shot by her boyfriend in 2010, her family were thrust into a nightmare, one that meant taking the...
Jackie makes sporting history for Ireland and uncovers the truth about her past. Taken from her mother as a baby and raised in an Irish inst...
A black girl in a white town, Jackie’s made to grow up silenced and alone. This episode contains outdated racial language that some might fi...
Ify Adenuga grew up with strict parents. As a mum, she rewrote the rulebook and encouraged creativity in her children, with her son Skepta b...
Filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman railed against Hollywood his whole career as the founder of cult B-movie production house, Troma, while his daughter...
M People star Andrew Lovell’s home life hid a terrible – yet beautiful – secret. It would take him decades to find out the truth. At the hei...
While Francois Pierron was homeless in London he taught himself to play a public piano at St Pancras train station – from scratch. His maste...
Maggie Robin raised a bear cub who grew into an extraordinary companion. When Maggie Robin and her wrestler husband Andy brought home a bear...
While filming in rebel-held Syria, Loubna Mrie is falsely accused of being a spy – an accusation that spirals into a life-threatening ordeal...
From a powerful Alawite family in Syria, Loubna Mrie trusted the Assad regime – until witnessing its violent crackdown led her to defy loyal...
An ordinary couple foiled the country's biggest drugs deal, all by doing a good deed. It involves a boat, a fake funeral at sea and the crim...
Rob Smethurst bought a bankrupt football club while his life was unravelling – then they went on to make football history and save him in th...
Colm Tóibín is a celebrated Irish writer, but as a child words didn't come easily. Navigating grief as a boy when his father died, he develo...
Willis Chimano is one of Kenya’s biggest pop stars. With the boyband Sauti Sol, he’s won a string of awards and even danced with President B...
When she was 14, Krystal Evans survived a lethal house fire. Years later, to come to terms with what she’d experienced, she turned it into a...
Joanne Briggs had always thought of her dad as a bit of a superhero. But he was hiding a dark secret. She only saw him a couple of times a y...
Fatima Whitbread grew up in a UK children’s home. She found both a mother and a coach in one person – going on to break the javelin world re...
When Ijeoma Uchegbu arrived back in the UK as a single mum of three young children she soon found herself living in a homeless shelter; now...
Swedish youth worker Nicolas Lunabba had one strict rule: never get attached to the kids you help. Then 13-year-old Elijah moved in — and tu...
N-Dubz singer Tulisa Contostavlos survived betrayal and a tabloid sting. Tulisa was born into a family of musicians in Camden, London, and s...
The incredible story of the football icon who changed a boy's life. Craig Bromfield's start in life was difficult: there was often no electr...
When Jenny Evans was sexually assaulted and confidential details appeared in a national newspaper, she decided to investigate – uncovering p...
Hayley Williams’ grandpa Rusty nurtured her musical dreams – now, she’s returning the favour. As the lead singer of American rock band Param...
The award-winning author who used her strict Mennonite upbringing to tell its unspoken stories. Miriam Toews is one of Canada’s most acclaim...
Trapped underground: my 54-hour cave rescue. For George Linnane, an experienced caver from England, being underground is his happy place, so...
Aged 16, coming out of an audition, budding British actor Dan Whitlam was caught up in a fight with a group of boys in London. He was stabbe...
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, on the unique upbringing that inspired a tech revolution. Tim Berners-Lee has well and...
Jack Horner inspired a character in Jurassic Park after the dino discovery of a lifetime. Jack has been fascinated by fossils for as long as...
In the chaos of the helicopter evacuation from Saigon in April 1975, Doan Hoàng Curtis' sister was somehow left behind. It would haunt her f...
Abbas Alizada was eight when he first saw a Bruce Lee film. He fell in love with kung-fu, copying his hero’s moves and his look before an on...
This extra edition of Lives Less Ordinary is to remember the remarkable conservationist and primatologist Jane Goodall, who has died at 91....
Vamarr Hunter always felt a special bond with the owner of his favourite local bakery — but never imagined she could be his long-lost birth...
Once a homeless teen in Mumbai, now Zarna Garg’s a top comedian, touring with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Zarna Garg was in her 40s living in...
Ron Bishop was 14 when he says police forced him to make false statements on the witness stand during a 1984 murder trial. His testimony hel...
Cesar Millan is known for training dogs on TV. What’s less well-known is that he migrated illegally to the US from Mexico and slept rough be...
How a romantic getaway ended in disaster. Dutch financier Annette Herfkens boarded Vietnam Airlines Flight 474 in November 1992, embarking o...
A heads-up on some of the extraordinary stories to look forward to from September - from a long-lost son, to the sole survivor of a plane cr...
As the Avontuur draws closer to Hamburg and its final port of call, the crew begin to reflect on what they’ve been through and what awaits t...
After 188 days without setting foot on land, the Avontuur finally arrives in Horta, in the Azores. But it's by no means certain whether the...
As the crew of the Avontuur fight their way out of the Gulf of Mexico and battle a hurricane that delays their journey back across the Atlan...
The crew of the Avontuur begin to wonder whether they will ever be able to get off the ship. As they become resigned to their new life of be...
Unable to step off the ship, tensions are rising amongst the crew of the Avontuur and coping mechanisms begin to emerge. When the dry store...
In the middle of the Atlantic, the crew of the Avontuur receive a satellite email with news from land that throws everything they’d been cou...
The Avontuur begins the second leg of its journey, setting out from Tenerife to cross the Atlantic. At work in the galley preparing breakfas...
15 people, 188 days at sea, one extraordinary ship: how the Avontuur was locked out at sea during the Covid-19 pandemic. What would you do i...
A corporate high-flyer ended up living in a forest after a spiral of debt, shame and secrecy. After avoiding a mounting debt to his landlord...
Robin Green is an American writer who has been dizzyingly successful, but she describes herself as a 'clueless girl'. At times, she didn't e...
Artist Kubra Khademi was so enraged by the constant sexual harassment faced by women in Afghanistan that she created a bespoke suit of armou...