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Society & Culture

The Documentary

BBC

The best of BBC World Service documentaries and other factual programmes.

The Documentary Podcast Guide

Listen to The Documentary, a Society & Culture podcast by BBC. Stream 2,118 episodes in English, follow new audio stories, and play episodes online on Radio and Podcast.

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Browse this show under Society & Culture podcasts.

Episodes

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Episodes

20 of 2,118 episodes

A singer’s search for peace

In Lithuania, singer Rūgilė Daujotaitė was becoming a familiar face on television. She was performing at major music events, competing for a...

26:29Aug 7, 2026

The teenagers who wired Romania

In the late '90s, in daring feats of DIY networking on rooftops across Romania’s capital, Bucharest, teenagers are stringing computer cables...

26:30Aug 6, 2026

The engineers: Flying at the edge

Aviation is being reimagined for a changing planet: Vertical take-off passenger cars for city centres. Hydrogen powered planes for zero carb...

49:29Aug 5, 2026

Getting Gaza back online

Amid the tents and the rubble Gaza is developing once again as an unlikely tech hub. Even before the 7 October 2023 attack and the subsequen...

26:45Aug 4, 2026

Skatepark designers Nine Yards

Nine Yards, the designers behind the Paris 2024 Olympic skatepark, get to work on their next big challenge: the rebuild of Olympiaplein, one...

26:29Aug 3, 2026

What is so-called 'Jihadi cool'?

The extremist content quietly spreading on TikTok and Instagram, targeting unsuspecting young people. Through what is disguised as innocuous...

27:27Aug 2, 2026

A Chinese dissident's journey

When Chinese policeman Dong Guangping wrote an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy pr...

26:37Aug 1, 2026

Wildfires in Europe

Wildfires continue to burn across the continent. Thousands of people have been evacuated on the Greek island of Crete, as well as in western...

23:34Aug 1, 2026

Rastafari and I

What does it mean to inherit a faith that served as a fortress for your father, but feels like a contradiction to you? Throughout his childh...

26:29Jul 31, 2026

A battle that changed Ireland

The 1st of July 1916 is still one of the deadliest days in the history of warfare. Nearly 20,000 men from the British Army and 6,000 German...

32:10Jul 30, 2026

Sierra Leone: The cocaine trail

Ed Butler investigates how one of Europe’s most wanted drug smugglers, Jos Leijdekkers, ended up in Sierra Leone while evading justice. He a...

18:28Jul 29, 2026

James Turrell: Master Of Light

The American artist James Turrell is famous for his Skyspaces. A Skyspace is chamber with an opening to the sky. Turrell bathes the roof wit...

26:27Jul 27, 2026

Driving across the divide

Cars driven by Israeli volunteers wait at check points to give lifts to sick Palestinians to their hospital appointments - what the voluntee...

49:32Jul 26, 2026

Saving Nigeria's vultures

When it comes to conservation, adorable and majestic animals often attract the most concern for their plight. It's not so easy to get the pu...

26:36Jul 25, 2026

The lifelong toll of surviving disaster

It has been a month since the twin earthquakes in Venezuela, estimated to have killed more than five thousand people. But there have also be...

23:19Jul 25, 2026

Searching for my samurai mother

When her mother dies, Rimi Tanaka regrets that she never truly got to know her. And so when her mother’s literary agent calls Rimi out of th...

26:30Jul 24, 2026

Italy’s child obesity time-bomb

Children who are so obese they’re banned from their local gyms. Two and three year olds who are so used to juice and fizzy drinks they find...

27:10Jul 21, 2026