Lives Less Ordinary Podcast
Have you ever locked eyes with a stranger and wondered, "What鈥檚 their story?" Step into someone else鈥檚 life and expect the unexpected. Extraordinary stories from around the world.
Episodes to download
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The Godmother of Beirut's nightlife
Sun 24 Sep 2023
Under the boot of the Syrian army, Nicole Moudaber brought raves to Lebanon
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The invisible child who now shines at Eurovision, part 2
Sun 10 Sep 2023
From the page to the stage: William turns childhood fantasies into reality
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The invisible child who now shines at Eurovision, part 1
Sun 3 Sep 2023
A bond between brothers, a coming-out story, and an international song contest
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Miracle on the ocean floor
Sun 27 Aug 2023
Harrison Okene spent three days trapped in an air pocket in a sunken ship
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Indiana Jones: The kids who remade a blockbuster
Sun 20 Aug 2023
In 1982, two Mississippi boys recreated a $22m film, shot-for-shot, on their pocket money
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The woman who fell from the sky, part 2
Sun 13 Aug 2023
How a jump changed daring parachutist Tony Osornio's life forever
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The woman who fell from the sky, part 1
Sun 6 Aug 2023
Tony Osornio would go to dangerous extremes to keep skydiving
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Bradford 12: The Asian youth who took on the racists, part 2
Sun 30 Jul 2023
Self-defence is no offence: how anti-racist activist Tariq Mehmood made UK legal history
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Bradford 12: The Asian youth who took on the racists, part 1
Sun 23 Jul 2023
Immigrant teen Tariq Mehmood led a movement to resist violent racism in 1970s Britain
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I save chimpanzees and they've saved me
Sun 16 Jul 2023
Stany Nyandwi's rescued chimpanzees helped him through war and loneliness
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Who is this kneeling man?
Sun 9 Jul 2023
My search for the truth about my father and Martin Luther King鈥檚 assassination
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How I survived a pirate hijack
Sun 2 Jul 2023
Marine engineer Chirag Bahri was trapped for eight gruelling months on a chemical tanker
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Love, war, and the cutting room floor
Sun 25 Jun 2023
Mariam and Mohammed are Yemeni filmmakers who turned the lens on their own relationship
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He was almost a mass shooter 鈥� an act of kindness stopped him
Sun 18 Jun 2023
Aaron Stark now works to raise awareness around why mass attacks happen
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Teenage dreams on the Indian Ocean
Sun 11 Jun 2023
At the age of 13 Laura Dekker fought for her right to sail solo around the world
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'Don't anger the monster', part 2
Sun 4 Jun 2023
Rowena Chiu was kept silent for 20 years by former film boss Harvey Weinstein
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'Don't anger the monster', part 1
Sun 28 May 2023
Rowena Chiu on surviving the Hollywood sexual predator Harvey Weinstein
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Sugar sandwiches and smarts: a poor kid's fairytale ending
Sun 21 May 2023
Raised by addicts, Dr Katriona O'Sullivan defied the odds to become a university lecturer
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Lola the bare-knuckle drag queen
Sun 14 May 2023
Martial arts kept him out of jail, but drag artistry made him whole
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I was there the night Emmett Till was taken
Sun 7 May 2023
Wheeler Parker is Emmett Till's cousin and the last surviving witness to his abduction
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Tanzania鈥檚 hip-hop politician
Sun 30 Apr 2023
Joseph Mbilinyi pioneered Swahili rap and then turned to politics, but ended up in jail
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'Brother. do. you. love. me.' The SMS that changed our lives
Sun 23 Apr 2023
Brothers Manni and Reuben Coe, and the text that prompted a lockdown rescue mission
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'Prison Break' and my escape from Manus Island
Sun 16 Apr 2023
Tricks from a hit TV show held the key to Jaivet Ealom鈥檚 audacious bid for freedom
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The spy who wanted to bring down apartheid: Part 2
Sun 9 Apr 2023
ANC spy Sue Dobson infiltrated the South African government. Then her cover was blown.
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The spy who wanted to bring down apartheid, part 1
Sun 2 Apr 2023
Sue Dobson was a white South African who risked her life as an ANC secret agent
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Bringing the Muppets to Moscow
Sun 26 Mar 2023
Natasha Lance Rogoff鈥檚 daunting task of making Sesame Street in post-Soviet Russia
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My life in seven swimming pools
Mon 20 Mar 2023
Amjed鈥檚 determined to teach kids in Gaza to swim no matter how many pools he has to build
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The Ukrainian opera singer nearly silenced by a bullet
Mon 13 Mar 2023
Sergiy Ivanchuk dreamed of stardom, before he was shot in the chest by Russian soldiers
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I didn鈥檛 know I was part of an experiment
Mon 6 Mar 2023
When Greenlander Helene Thiesen was just seven, two Danish men came to take her away
Watch Lives Less Ordinary on YouTube
Videos from our extraordinary podcast Lives Less Ordinary.
