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
Never ever give up: how Diana Nyad swam from Cuba to Florida
American endurance swimmer Diana Nyad faced down box jellyfish, cold and extreme fatigue to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage for protection, in 2013. She was …
The hungry boy who devoted his life to muscle
Gilbert Alaskadi grew up in the African country of Chad. His family was poor, and he spent much of his childhood hungry, with people frequently making fun of his small stature. Then, when he was a te…
Buddhist chants and Ibiza trance: A Spanish boy’s odyssey
Osel Hita Torres was a Spanish toddler when he was recognised by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of a well-known Tibetan Buddhist monk and teacher called Lama Yeshe. As a child he was sent to a m…
The Lost Boy: A never-ending journey, part 2
At the age of 11 in 1985, Salva Dut was separated from his family by the Sudanese civil war. After a decade moving between different refugee camps, and presumed an orphan, Salva was recommended for r…
The Lost Boy: A never-ending journey, part 1
Salva Dut is one of Sudan's so-called 'Lost Boys.' Separated from his family at the age of 11 when the civil war reached his village in 1985, Salva walked for weeks to reach safety in a refugee camp …
Britain’s infected blood scandal, my quest for the truth
In the early 1980s Jason Evans' father was given a blood product called Factor 8 to treat his haemophilia, which infected him with HIV. He was one of thousands of people in the UK who were unwittingl…
The family hiding in the bush after leaking Russian secrets
Nick Stride said too much about his former boss, one of Putin’s closest allies.
Nick Stride, a builder from the UK, feared for his family’s safety after discovering alleged financial corruption while…
'It's much easier for them to create a spy than catch a spy'
Anoosheh Ashoori was visiting Iran when he was snatched off the street by security forces. He was falsely accused of espionage, and spent years in one of the country's toughest prisons.
For a long ti…
Dead Man Walking: The US nun who took on the death penalty
When Sister Helen Prejean agreed to write to a convicted murderer on Louisiana’s death row in 1982, she had no idea what was coming. She would end up becoming his spiritual advisor, eventually accomp…
My father Faiz: Pakistan’s revolutionary poet, part 2
Salima Hashmi is a pioneer of political satire on Pakistani TV. But after the dictator General Zia took power in the 1977 military coup, she faced new and dangerous challenges when her show was banne…
My father Faiz: Pakistan’s revolutionary poet, part 1
Salima Hashmi grew up in Lahore witnessing the radical poetry of her celebrated father, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. It inspired her own path into art and performance, creating Pakistani TV’s first ever politica…
The man who finds water in the desert
Alain Gachet quit a lucrative career in oil to search for water underground. Colleagues told him he was a 'crazy donkey', but he eventually developed an algorithm that allowed him to 'peel the earth …
Kill or be killed: a climber’s dilemma, part 2
Beth Rodden escaped her kidnappers, and pushed her body to its limit, following the climber code of whatever hurts makes you stronger. She married her boyfriend Tommy Caldwell, who had saved them by …
Kill or be killed: A climber’s dilemma, part 1
Beth Rodden was on a dream climbing expedition in Kyrgyzstan when she was kidnapped by Islamist militants. She and her friends spent days moving between hiding places in the mountains, fearing for th…
The Hiroshima survivor who's still shouting for peace
Setsuko Thurlow knows what nuclear war looks like.
She was a 13-year-old schoolgirl when an atomic bomb was dropped on her home city of Hiroshima, Japan. Most of the places she knew were destroyed in…
Lost in lion country and saved by Spam
In 2016, when Jenny Söderqvist and Helene Åberg’s car exploded in the middle of the vast Kalahari desert, their supplies and only lifeline to the outside world went up in flames. No rescue would come…
Painting, prison and two decades in Guantanamo
Mistaken for a terrorist, and detained without trial. Art became his refuge.
Pakistani taxi driver Ahmed Rabbani was arrested in 2002, labelled a terrorist and spent 21 years in US detention, includin…
How I convinced police my dad was a murderer
On the day his mother disappeared in December 1989, 11-year-old Collier Landry started looking for evidence.
He suspected his father, a rich and well-respected town doctor, had something to do with …
Balochistan’s mystery benjo man, part 2
How Ustad Noor Bakhsh, a Pakistani shepherd in his 70s, became a folk music star
After hunting for four years, Pakistani ethnomusicologist Daniyal Ahmed finally finds Ustad Noor Bakhsh, an elderly she…
Balochistan’s mystery benjo man, part 1
The epic quest to find an elderly Pakistani musician and his unusual stringed instrument
Daniyal Ahmed is a flute player and anthropologist who spends his time searching out and documenting folk music…