Lives Less Ordinary
BBC World Service
Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected.
Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience.
Our guests come from every corner of the globe: from Burundi to Beverly Hills, New Zealand to North Korea, Rajasthan to Rio. And their stories can be about anything: tales of survival, humour, resilience and intrigue. From the mind-blowing account of the Japanese man trapped in his own reality TV show, to the Swedish women rescued from lions by a tin of spam. It’s life’s wild side, in stereo. Lives Less Ordinary is brought to you by the team behind Outlook, the home of true life storytelling on BBC World Service radio for nearly 60 years.
Got a story to tell? Send an email to liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
You can read our privacy notice here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice
Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience.
Our guests come from every corner of the globe: from Burundi to Beverly Hills, New Zealand to North Korea, Rajasthan to Rio. And their stories can be about anything: tales of survival, humour, resilience and intrigue. From the mind-blowing account of the Japanese man trapped in his own reality TV show, to the Swedish women rescued from lions by a tin of spam. It’s life’s wild side, in stereo. Lives Less Ordinary is brought to you by the team behind Outlook, the home of true life storytelling on BBC World Service radio for nearly 60 years.
Got a story to tell? Send an email to liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
You can read our privacy notice here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 23, 2023 • 40min
'Brother. do. you. love. me.' The SMS that changed our lives
Brothers Manni and Reuben Coe, and the text that prompted a lockdown rescue mission.Manni was living in Spain when he received this troubling text from his younger brother Reuben. Reuben has Down's syndrome, and had become isolated and non-verbal while living in a care home in the UK during the Covid pandemic. Manni decided to stage a rescue — a 'bro-nap' — and together they embarked on a loving journey of brotherhood and recovery. Manni and Reuben have written a book called Brother. Do. You. Love. Me.Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: May Cameron
Apr 16, 2023 • 49min
'Prison Break' and my escape from Manus Island
Tricks from a hit TV show held the key to Jaivet Ealom’s audacious dash for freedom. As a student in his native Myanmar, Jaivet Ealom became obsessed with the hit US TV show Prison Break. He watched it on a loop, but never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d be in a similar position to its main character. When he found himself locked up in Australia's notorious Manus Regional Processing Centre with no end in sight, could he outdo fiction and find a way out?Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Edgar Maddicott
Apr 9, 2023 • 42min
The spy who wanted to bring down apartheid: Part 2
ANC spy Sue Dobson infiltrated the South African government. Then her cover was blown. After training, Sue had got a job within the government's propaganda unit, and she was feeding back good intelligence to her ANC handlers. Then she got a phone call. The security services were after her, and she was a long way from safety. Presenter: India Rakusen
Producer: Harry Graham
Editor: Deiniol Buxton
Sound design: Joel Cox
Apr 2, 2023 • 41min
The spy who wanted to bring down apartheid, part 1
Sue Dobson was a white South African who risked her life as an ANC secret agentSue was a student when she was first recruited as a spy for the African National Congress liberation movement in the 1980s, and she knew that if she was caught she'd face prison, torture or death. Sue's mission would require her to infiltrate the pro-apartheid media establishment, but first she needed to learn spycraft and weapons handling. Her training would take place in Soviet Russia. Presenter: India Rakusen
Producer: Harry Graham
Editor: Deiniol Buxton
Sound design: Joel Cox
Mar 26, 2023 • 41min
Bringing the Muppets to Moscow
Natasha Lance Rogoff’s daunting task of making Sesame Street in post-Soviet Russia.In the early 90s, American journalist Natasha Lance Rogoff was covering the collapse of the Soviet Union – until the Muppets came calling, and she was tasked with bringing Sesame Street to Moscow. After decades of communism a new Russia was emerging, but could it embrace a US TV show?Creating Ulitsa Sezam was a daunting challenge for Natasha. She would have to overcome a huge culture clash and, along the way, face mobsters with shark tanks, bankruptcy, and the kidnapping of Elmo. Natasha has written a book called Muppets in Moscow: The unexpected crazy true story of making Sesame Street in Russia.Presenter: Asya Fouks
Producer: Maryam Maruf
Editor: Munazza Khan
5 snips
Mar 20, 2023 • 45min
My life in seven swimming pools
Amjed Tantesh is determined to teach kids in Gaza to swim no matter how many pools he has to build.Finding freedom in the water as a child, Amjed wanted to train the next generation of Gazans for Olympic swimming glory – not easy when he had to keep abandoning his pools. Yet through relentlessly rebuilding and restarting, over decades of war, Amjed’s swimming initiative found its true purpose.This episode contains upsetting moments involving children.Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Louise Morris
Interpreter: Youssef Taha
Mar 13, 2023 • 40min
The Ukrainian opera singer nearly silenced by a bullet
Sergiy Ivanchuk dreamed of stardom, before he was shot in the chest by Russian soldiers.He was a volunteer helping refugees escape Eastern Ukraine during the early days of the 2022 invasion, when his car was attacked. He was hit in the legs, hand and back, and he was lucky to survive a punctured lung. When Sergiy woke up in hospital, he could barely talk, let alone sing, but he refused to give up his ambitions of being a world famous baritone. Presenter: Asya Fouks
Producer: Harry Graham
Editor: Andrea Kennedy
Sound design: Joel Cox
Mar 6, 2023 • 37min
I didn’t know I was part of an experiment
When Greenlander Helene Thiesen was just seven, two Danish men came to take her away.In 1951, Greenland native Helene Thiesen was just seven years old when two Danish men knocked at the family home. That moment would shape the rest of her life. These men, acting at the invitation of the Danish colonial government were rounding up the brightest Inuit children and sending them to live in Denmark to be re-educated as model Danish citizens or ‘little Danes’. Helene suffered terribly from being separated from her mother and siblings and it would take her many decades to discover the horrible truth behind it all: she was part of an experiment. Of the 22 children that were taken, Helene is now one of the few survivors.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Edgar Maddicott
Translator: Alette Rye Scales
Voice: Julia Holden
Feb 27, 2023 • 36min
Eyes on the prize: Pakistan’s first trans film star
Rejected by family and society, trans actor Alina Khan was forced to spend time on the streets of her native Lahore as a child. Through dance, she found an escape and a living, but also encountered prejudice. Facing down loneliness, poverty and danger, she carved her own principled path to big screen fame. Now she’s won praise for her performance as Biba, a fiery and ambitious trans woman, in international award-winning new film Joyland.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Laura Thomas
Feb 20, 2023 • 33min
Becoming Blair 'the Flair': a boxer on the run, part 2
In the ring, Blair finds calm amidst the chaos of his life.
Back in the US Blair Cobbs falls again on hard times; homeless in Philadelphia his boxing dream seems out of reach. But a string of lucky breaks may just tip the balance. Blair’s brazen alter-ego who’s kept him alive thus far now has a name – Blair ‘the Flair’ – and some recognition in the ring. But could ‘the Flair’ take him all the way to the top of the boxing world? Presenter: Asya Fouks
Producer: Louise Morris
