Lives Less Ordinary Podcast
Have you ever locked eyes with a stranger and wondered, "What’s their story?" Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected. Extraordinary stories from around the world.
Episodes to download
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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’s 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 – 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’s 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’s 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’s 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’s 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’t 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
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Eyes on the prize: Pakistan’s first trans film star
Mon 27 Feb 2023
Rejected by family and society, Alina Khan carved her own path to big screen fame
