Lives Less Ordinary
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 [email protected] 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
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 39 minutes
- Episodes
- 186
- Years Active
- 2022 - 2025
Stolen as a baby, I called my abductor ‘Mom’
On the night of December 15th, 1997, a fire broke out in the home of Luz Cuevas and Pedro Vera, a couple living in Philadelphia with their two young sons and their ten-day-old daughter, Delimar. She…
Black boy joy: defying stereotypes on the London stage
Ryan Calais Cameron dreamed of being an actor, but after a careers advisor told him this was unrealistic he took a different path as a tradesman. Unhappy, Ryan took a risk with acting and eventually …
The long climb back
In 2017 Australian Gus Taylor lost his lower leg in a terrible climbing accident. The climbing community rallied, hauled him out of depression and got him back on the mountains again. But then in 202…
The journalist who took down a billion-dollar company
Dan McCrum investigated a story at Wirecard that had him fearing for his safety.
British journalist Dan McCrum usually writes about businesses for the London-based newspaper, the Financial Times. In 2…
The cricket star who learned to fly
Ricky Ellcock’s rollercoaster life as a fast bowler and airline pilot
Barbados-born Ricky Ellcock had twin ambitions as a boy – to become a cricketer and fly airplanes. His father was, like Ricky, cri…
The bullet that ended our friendship
Paul Rousseau was accidentally shot in the head by his best friend and flatmate.
When Paul met Mark in the first year of university in the US, they quickly became close. They moved in together, and s…
After doomsday: I outgrew a cult and became a professor
Jerald Walker grew up in the predominantly white, Worldwide Church of God – a doomsday cult that convinced its followers the world would end in 1972. Raised by blind, African American parents and und…
Naked and alone: the comedian trapped in a reality TV show
Nasubi had no idea his 15-month fight to survive was being broadcast on Japanese TV.
In the late 1990s aspiring comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu, nicknamed Nasubi, lived inside a small room for 15 months surv…
How my mysterious childhood became a best-selling novel
Trent Dalton discovered he was on the fringe of one of Australia’s biggest crime stories.
Back in the 1980s, when Trent was a kid growing up in Brisbane, he discovered that there was a secret undergr…
The sports scandal scoop that almost destroyed me
In 1998 Finnish journalist Johanna Aatsalo uncovered a huge news story: a member of the much-revered Finnish cross-country ski team had taken banned substances. After six months' intense investigatio…
Saved by goats after my fall from the sacred mountain
When he slid off a 40-metre cliff in the jungle, Morgan Segui thought he was sure to die.
Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food; that is the rule that every mou…
Looking for my son for 58 years, part 2
Bestselling writer Lesley Pearse never stopped looking for her son.
An agent once told Lesley Pearse to "write what you know", but her own story is more extraordinary than any of her bestselling novel…
Looking for my son for 58 years, part 1
Bestselling writer Lesley Pearse's own story is wilder than any romance.
An agent once told Lesley Pearse to "write what you know", but her own story is more extraordinary than any of her bestselling …
The Wicker Man: Learning to love the film that broke us
Dominic and Justin Hardy were young boys when their father, the director Robin Hardy, began a gruelling and obsessive quest to make The Wicker Man. Now the film is regarded as a masterpiece and belov…
"He counted 3, 2, 1 – then stabbed me in the heart"
Kieran Quinlan was on his way to a party when a man with a knife attacked him.
Kieran Quinlan was an aspiring boxer living in his hometown of Birmingham in the UK. When he was 17 he was on the bus he…
The US’s first black astronaut trainee reaches space at 90
In May 2024, 90-year-old Ed Dwight Jr. from Kansas City, Missouri travelled to the edge of space – he was an honoured guest in the Blue Origin rocket. His trip was 60 years overdue. Ed had been chose…
Love, grief, and an AI chatbot
Joshua created an AI simulation of his deceased fiancée to help him deal with his loss.
When gaming enthusiast Joshua Barbeau met Jessica, he knew he had found his soulmate. But his happiness didn't l…
A love story and a battle cry in the Ecuadorian rainforest
Nemonte Nenquimo’s passion for her rainforest home, and her love for an unlikely man, propelled her to achieve an historic victory for indigenous people in Ecuador. She took the national government t…
The boy who hid from Nazis in the woods, part 2
Maxwell Smart survived the Holocaust by living in a makeshift bunker on the forest floor.
Maxwell Smart was just 11 years old in 1941 when the Nazis took over his town in eastern Poland. One by one hi…
The boy who hid from Nazis in the woods, part 1
Maxwell Smart survived the Holocaust by living in a makeshift bunker on the forest floor.
Maxwell Smart was just 11 years old in 1941 when the Nazis took over his town in eastern Poland. One by one hi…