Over the weekend the singer Sam Smith released a statement which read: “I’ve decided I am changing my pronouns to THEY/THEM.” Coming from a pop artist who has sold over 20m records, this felt like a moment where non-binary hit the mainstream. Sam’s post sparked a debate about gender, identity and language. Tom Rasmussen is a drag queen, writer and actor who identifies as non-binary, and Sam Smith credited Tom for helping them understand what it is to be this. We invited Tom into the Beyond Today...
Sep 17, 2019•26 min
Eight years ago, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad began his brutal crackdown on opponents of his regime. Air strikes have long targeted hospitals, and in the last rebel stronghold of Idlib medics are being forced underground to survive. Waad Al-Kateab is a Syrian journalist who lived through this in the city of Aleppo. She filmed what it was like surviving as bombs rained down, living in her husband’s hospital and bringing her daughter, Sama, into a war-torn world. Now, with co-director Ed Watt...
Sep 16, 2019•23 min
Six years since it last aired, the TV series Top Boy is back. Although the show, which revolves around an east London estate and the people who live there, is entirely fictional it was lauded for depicting the reality of inner-city life. But even though its second series premiered to critical acclaim, Channel 4 cancelled Top Boy. It was only after an intervention by the Canadian rapper Drake that Netflix decided to bring it back. The creator Ronan Bennett came to the Beyond Today studio to talk ...
Sep 13, 2019•26 min
Fruit Medley, Cotton Candy and Buttered Popcorn may sound like options on a dessert menu, but they are actually vape flavours. President Trump has just said he wants to ban the sale of all non-tobacco flavoured e-cigarettes in response to an outbreak of a vaping-related illness that has caused the deaths of six people and made 450 ill. We hear from one of them Simah Herman, who shared a photo of herself in a hospital bed as an attempt to warn others of the dangers of vaping. The BBC’s health and...
Sep 12, 2019•22 min
On the 24th of August, 19-year-old Uyinene Mrwetyana went missing in Cape Town. She had gone to fetch a parcel at the post office. A week later her body was found. She had been raped and murdered. Her death spurred a movement across the country with thousands of people protesting after the most deadly month for violent crimes against women the country has ever seen. Rebone Masemola is a women’s rights activist in Johannesburg. She talks about the daily struggles of being a woman in South Africa,...
Sep 11, 2019•21 min
Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale , originally released in 1985, has become a modern-day phenomenon thanks to the recent TV series and explosion of feminist politics. Its sequel The Testaments was released this week with a Harry Potter-esque book launch on Monday, which saw fans queuing round the corner to get their hands on a copy. We hear from Deborah Frances-White of The Guilty Feminist about how close Margaret Atwood’s story gets to reality. And Marnie Chesterton from Cro...
Sep 10, 2019•19 min
In July eight people were convicted for their part in Britain’s biggest ever modern slavery prosecution. The gang were part of an organised crime group from Poland which enslaved hundreds of people. The victims were tricked into coming to the UK with the promise of work. When they arrived they were forced into menial labour, had no access to their wages and housed in rat-infested accommodation while the gang made an estimated £2m over five years. We speak to BBC Panorama’s Duncan Staff who follo...
Sep 09, 2019•21 min
Malcolm Gladwell seems to be everyone’s fantasy dinner guest. Also a contender for America’s greatest intellectual, he’s a Canadian with roots in the UK. The writer and host of the Revisionist History podcast is back with a new book: “Talking to Strangers”. In it he explores what we should know about the people we don’t - and how some of the most infamous cases of recent history stem from people misreading each other. He came to the Beyond Today studio to talk about the importance of slowing dow...
Sep 06, 2019•21 min
MPs came back from their summer break on Tuesday and it already feels like months ago. A lot of politics has happened since then and what with the betrayals, the tears, and the memes it’s become the biggest reality show since Love Island. It’s difficult to figure out who is really in charge of events at the moment since MPs voted to take over the Brexit process from the Prime Minister. To help us understand what’s happened and to prepare us for what seems like an inevitable general election, wit...
Sep 05, 2019•27 min
Amid the Brexit chaos, there’s another story that went viral this week. A teenage boy in Bristol has lost his eyesight because of his poor diet. Since leaving primary school, he had been eating only French fries, Pringles and white bread, as well as an occasional slice of ham or a sausage. The story provoked strong opinions about what we should and shouldnt be eating. We speak to author and journalist Eve Simmons about our complicated national relationship with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food. Robbie Davi...
Sep 04, 2019•21 min
A recent government survey found that 5% of gay people in the UK had been offered conversion therapy in order to “cure” them, and that 2% had undergone it. It’s a small percentage, but it’s still pretty shocking that the practice happens here at all. For a documentary for Radio 1 and 1Xtra, James Barr and Dan Hudson from the “A Gay and A NonGay” podcast travelled to Northern Ireland to find out more about life for LGBTQ+ people there. As part of the trip James had a taster of what it’s like to h...
Sep 03, 2019•21 min
The Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his advisers have a plan for staying in power and getting us out of the EU. They are picking their way through it and today they held a special cabinet meeting to discuss calling an election. Tomorrow, MPs are back in parliament with a chance to stop them taking us out of the EU without any deal. While the politicians figure out their next moves the anger is growing on both sides and, whatever happens over the next two months, there seems no prospect of this ...
Sep 02, 2019•17 min
Sara Pascoe’s first book explored the anatomy of the female body. Now the comedian has turned her attention to masculinity. Sara came to the Beyond Today studio to talk about her new book, what RuPaul’s Drag Race can teach us about gender roles, whether sex workers should be prescribed on the NHS and why men shouldn’t have to pay the bill on a first date. Producers: Alicia Burrell and Philly Beaumont Mixed by Weidong Lin
Aug 30, 2019•22 min
The prime minister's decision to suspend parliament prompted an angry backlash from MPs and opponents of a no-deal Brexit. It sparked protests across the country, a legal challenge and a petition with – at the time of writing - around one and a half million signatures. The government claims the five-week suspension in September and October will still allow time for MPs to debate Brexit. It’s another of those moments in the Brexit saga, and there seem to have been loads of them, that leaves peopl...
Aug 29, 2019•24 min
Wildfires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest are burning at a record rate. It’s caused global anger and anxiety with more than three million people sharing the hashtag #PrayforAmazonia. Criticism has been directed at the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro for failing to protect the rainforest and rejecting $22 million of aid money. In this episode we look at who has ownership over the Amazon and other places of environmental importance like the Arctic. We speak to Jon Lee Anderson, a journalist at th...
Aug 28, 2019•22 min
One year ago, a 15-year-old girl from Sweden started protesting outside the Swedish parliament, urging the government to pay attention to the world’s climate crisis. Now Greta Thunberg has become the face of environmental activism. Two weeks ago, when Greta set sail to America on a zero carbon boat, the internet exploded with some fairly vicious commentary. She was called a ‘pig-tailed school drop-out’ and climate change advocates rushed to, sometimes just as viciously, defend her. This week her...
Aug 27, 2019•21 min
In this re-release of one of our favourite recent episodes, Tina speaks to filmmaker Louis Theroux. Back in July he came in to tell us about his documentary Surviving America’s Most Hated Family and why, 13 years on, he’s still interested in the Westboro Baptist Church. We also talk to him about nudity, why he’s not into hallucinogenic drug rituals, the problem with no-platforming and how he became the most widely meme-d journalist in Britain.
Aug 26, 2019•29 min
Tina Daheley speaks with Mobeen Azhar, a journalist and filmmaker for the BBC who travelled to Portland, Oregon to make a film about the death of a 19-year-old African American. The footage of Larnell Bruce running for his life went viral at the time, raising alarm about white supremacy. But in Oregon, Mobeen uncovered a story far more complex than he’d ever anticipated. Produced by Jessica Beck Mixed by Weidong Lin Edited by John Shields
Aug 23, 2019•24 min
This week, Manchester United footballer, Paul Pogba received racial abuse online from anonymous accounts after he missed a penalty. He’s the third player in a week to be racially abused on social media following a penalty miss. In response, teammate Harry Maguire tweeted that social media users should have to verify their identity before opening an account. Kerry Allen is a media analyst covering China for BBC Monitoring. She explains how social media works in a country where ID checks are enfor...
Aug 22, 2019•21 min
Last week around a hundred people in Iceland walked up the side of a windswept rocky mountain to attend the funeral… of a glacier. Okjokull’s death was a result of climate change, and scientists predict that within 200 years all of Iceland’s glaciers will go the same way. So, what does the death of Okjokull mean for a country whose national identity is woven into its frozen landscape? And, why is ice melting in the subarctic a warning to the rest of the world? We speak to the author Andri Snaer ...
Aug 21, 2019•18 min
Office space company We Work have just released their prospectus ahead of their stock market flotation next month. Their vision of the future of work is a utopian one forged from the Silicon Valley tech boom. It’s a vision of work-based community that some say creates a culture of ‘hustle porn.’ We speak to Wall Street Journal business podcast presenter Kim Gittleson about whether they can deliver on their promises. We also speak to Maddy Savage about modern work culture and how striving for per...
Aug 20, 2019•23 min
Earlier this month, India imposed a media blackout in Kashmir while they stripped the region of its autonomy, causing panic, outrage and protests. As the tensions between India and Pakistan escalate, we look at how we got here and what could happen next. And what does Priyanka Chopra have to do with it? Yogita Limaye, the BBC’s India correspondent, and BBC Pakistan and Afghanistan Correspondent Secunder Kermani assess whether the intractable conflict can ever be solved. Producers: Harriet Noble,...
Aug 19, 2019•19 min
Arous was an idyllic holiday resort on Sudan’s Red Sea coast, a slice of paradise offering an escape to up to 30 scuba-diving tourists in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But it held a secret, one so outlandish it’s just been made into a Netflix movie. The BBC news website’s Middle East Editor Raffi Berg tells us a tale of espionage, exodus and wind-surfing. Producer: Harriet Noble Mixed by Weidong Lin Editor: John Shields
Aug 16, 2019•20 min
Everyone who has heard the story of a woman on a Tinder date spending £15,000 on wine at the Shard seems to have loved it. The voice note has whipped around social media. But as soon as you’ve heard it you start to wonder if it’s true. Nesta McGregor from Radio 1’s Newsbeat tells us how some fairly basic research revealed it as false. We pick up the investigation and attempt to track down the source of the story while David Robson, author of ‘Intelligence Trap’, tells us about the origins and en...
Aug 15, 2019•19 min
The average student debt after a three year degree course in England is £50,000. It’s a large sum that can be off-putting when you hear tales of jobless graduates and self-made entrepreneurs. Student debt is lower in Wales and Northern Ireland and less still in Scotland where you don’t pay fees, but even here student debt has doubled in the last decade. In this episode we speak to Natalie Olah. She’s written a book - based on her experience at university and after - called ‘Steal As Much As You ...
Aug 14, 2019•20 min
The financier Jeffrey Epstein was in a Manhattan prison awaiting trial for sex trafficking when he was found dead in his cell last weekend. The multi-millionaire moved in the richest social circles with people like Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. But with his death, apparently by suicide, how much can we really know? And will his victims ever find justice? Nada Tawfik, the BBC reporter in New York following the case, tells us the details of Epstein’s life and crimes. And we hear fr...
Aug 13, 2019•23 min
Last week Championship side Derby County announced Wayne Rooney, the former England captain, would be joining the team as a player-coach on a reported £100,000-a-week contract and will wear the number 32. Derby also secured a “record-breaking sponsorship” deal with the online casino 32Red. The news has raised questions about football’s links to gambling at a time when the industry is booming and smartphones have made it easier to place bets than ever before. So, is the transfer more than just a ...
Aug 12, 2019•20 min
Cyntoia Brown was 16 when she was jailed for life for murder. This week she walked free after the Governor of Tennessee granted her clemency. She was backed by a number of powerful celebrities including Kim Kardashian who used social media to highlight her case as part of a campaign to get young black Americans out of unfair jail sentences. We speak to Samantha Schmidt from the Washington Post about the details of the case. We also hear from Kevin Sharp, former judge who went to the White House ...
Aug 09, 2019•21 min
“There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a great deal.” That’s what Boris Johnson, then Foreign Secretary, said in July 2017. A no-deal Brexit was once a fringe idea, but it’s now what Johnson’s government is working towards to fulfil his pledge to leave the EU by the end of October. So has no deal become inevitable? Daniel Kraemer has been working on this for the last four months in the BBC’s Westminster newsroom. He tells us how Brexit has come down to a political showdown bet...
Aug 08, 2019•21 min
Boris Johnson’s government is “turbo-charging” plans for leaving the EU without a deal at the end of October. People are asking each other if we’re going to have enough food, whether they should be stockpiling tins and if it’s going to cost more money. Companies are stockpiling ingredients and today supermarkets have asked the government to change the law so they can work together to stop stuff running out after 31 October. David Gregory-Kumar tells us lamb farmers are particularly worried that ...
Aug 07, 2019•21 min
