The Old Oak will be Ken Loach's last feature film and Sharuna Sagar was granted exclusive access behind the scenes of this landmark movie. She joins the 86 year old director on his swansong as he brings together his loyal team for one last time. As with his previous two films, I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You, Ken returns to the North East of England, to tell the story of Syrian refugees who have been housed in an ex-mining village. With him are his long-standing partners, producer Rebecc...
Jun 05, 2023•27 min
It’s 70 years since a New Zealand mountaineer and his Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer guide reached the highest point on Earth. There have been celebrations in Nepal in recent days to mark the anniversary. Thousands of people have followed in their footsteps but this climbing season on Mount Everest is drawing international attention for the record number of climbers and the increased deaths on the mountain. James Reynolds hosts conversations that give us an insight into one of the toughest cha...
Jun 03, 2023•24 min
Jean Vanier changed Richard and Hazel’s lives. He founded the L’Arche movement – a global network inspired by Christian teaching – where people with and without learning disabilities live together in community. During his life, Vanier was hailed as “a living saint” and “a prophet”. But shortly after his death, a deep and disturbing secret emerged – that Vanier founded L’Arche to hide a mystical sex sect, coercing and abusing at least 25 women, all without disabilities. Richard and Hazel were stu...
Jun 02, 2023•28 min
Russia is supplying the Myanmar military with advanced fighter jets and training their pilots how to use them in a war against their own people. More than two years on from the coup, the country’s military is facing a countrywide armed uprising and their troops are struggling to hold ground and recruit foot-soldiers. So, the strategy is turning increasingly to the air with devastating consequences. BBC’s Asia editor Rebecca Henschke follows those fighting back on the ground and in the air. And m...
Jun 01, 2023•28 min
For years the people of Evin-Malmaison in north-east France have lived and brought up children in a town which is dangerously polluted. The Metaleurop Foundry attracted workers and their families, it provided life to the area - but it has now killed it with the pollution, which lies deep in the soil. Twenty years after the factory closed, the scale of the scandal has only just emerged, thanks to a new residents campaign. But who will takes responsibility? Marine Hay meets the families here who s...
May 30, 2023•28 min
Alberta is an award-winning Barbadian-Scottish multi-disciplinary artist whose work encompasses drawing, digital collage, film and video installation, sculpture, performance and writing. In this edition of In The Studio, Antonia Quirke follows the progress of a new painting, commissioned specifically for the exhibition. All is going well with the painting, until Alberta realises that it might be upside down.
May 29, 2023•28 min
The exact cause is unknown, but the mental health condition ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) affects millions of lives around the world. Symptoms include hyperactive behaviour and maintaining concentration. To understand its effect a little more, we brought people together who are living with it. Two mothers in Kenya and the UK share their experiences of bringing up children with the condition. Host James Reynolds also hears from two couples living with ADHD in Nigeria and the Uni...
May 27, 2023•24 min
One of the founding principles of the United States is that religion and politics, church and state, are separate. Yet today in America religious belief and politics have become inseparable. Self-styled "evangelical" Christians have become the dominant grassroots force in the Republican Party. "Evangelical" is not a denomination, it can mean different things to different people in terms of religious doctrine. The unifying principle seems to be in the political outlook of its adherents: deeply co...
May 26, 2023•28 min
Drought and hotter summers are killing Germany’s spruce forests. They’re a staple of the timber industry but are proving unable to cope with the consequences of climate change. Four out of five of Germany’s trees show signs of sickness, according to the latest survey of the health of the country’s forests. All tree species are affected. And although the last couple of years have seen more rain this hasn’t been enough to compensate for the damage already done. One third of Germany is forested and...
May 25, 2023•28 min
Brazil has one of the highest rates of trans and gender-diverse homicides in the world, and almost three-quarters of people killed each year are either black or mixed race. Many think the country's conservative and populist class explicitly targets Afro-Brazilians, whose voices are under-represented in politics and culture, despite making up more than half of the country's population. Frank McWeeny heads to Salvador to meet the queer and PoC collective Batekoo, who are changing perceptions by ad...
May 24, 2023•32 min
Frank McWeeny heads to Beirut to meet the nightlife community behind the Grand Factory club, and explores how underground culture here survives even during chronic lack of opportunity. This scene is working tirelessly to remain active, while rebuilding both physically and psychologically. But how do you run a club in a country that is going through the worst economic and political crisis in its history?
May 24, 2023•39 min
What is it like to live through the collapse of your country, in a city you love and cannot bear to leave? Lina Mounzer is a writer and translator living in Beirut, and this is a question she wrestles with, both in her writing and her daily life. Lebanon has been in crisis since 2019 when the country’s financial system started to collapse - many people lost their life savings overnight. The 2020 Beirut port explosion then only increased people’s suffering. Lina speaks to friends, family and neig...
May 23, 2023•28 min
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an artist and forensic investigator of sound. He describes himself as a 'private ear’, listening to, with and on behalf of people affected by corporate, state and environmental crimes. Whether that’s determining the type of ammunition and location of gunfire from sound alone, drawing on earwitness testimony for evidence, or uncovering crucial information buried within noise. As a new exhibition of his work opens at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, presenter Eliza Loma...
May 22, 2023•28 min
Twenty years after the US-led invasion, four young Iraqis recall life under foreign occupation and share their hopes and fears for the future. Shedding a light on post-Saddam Iraq are: 26-year-old Dima who rebelled against religious extremists in her native Basra and has rediscovered a love of singing; Bassam, an enthusiastic environmentalist helping re-green the city of Mosul; Ahmed, a Kurdish graduate struggling to make ends meet in a local barber shop; and Baraa, a female publisher, whose mes...
May 21, 2023•51 min
On a mission to make sense of the world. A new podcast, with hosts John Simpson and Claire Graham. Episodes released weekly from 20 May 2023.
May 20, 2023•1 min
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest figures suggest that nearly seven million people have died due to Covid - although the true figure is likely to be much higher. While many more contracted the disease and avoided being seriously ill, one estimate suggests 65 million people have not fully recovered. These are the people with long Covid, whose symptoms have persisted for more than six months after being infected. This month, the WHO said Covid-19 is no longer a “global health emergency”...
May 20, 2023•25 min
In Britain, the growth of Islam is being driven by a younger population, born and brought up in the United Kingdom. This includes BBC reporter Rahil Sheikh. Having grown up against the backdrop of the ‘war on terror’ and rising Islamophobia, he has seen how young Muslims have turned to social media to forge online safe spaces where they can connect, celebrate and discuss their faith. Young Muslims say these social media stars explain the faith in a more relatable way than the imams or spiritual ...
May 19, 2023•28 min
New Orleans is the murder capital of the United States: researchers into 2022’s crime figures say it suffered more homicides per capita than any other major city. Carjackings, armed robberies and other potentially lethal offences are also at sky high levels in ‘The Big Easy’ - a place better known for its happy mix of cuisine, carnival and colonial architecture. Crime plagues many American cities, and some of these problems are down to familiar causes, with economic disparity, poor education and...
May 18, 2023•28 min
Introducing season 2 of an original podcast about hackers and North Korea. They’re back - in fact the criminals never went away. Season 2 begins at an ATM, possibly near you.
May 17, 2023•36 min
Sir Lenny Henry's new one man show - August in England gives an insight into the lives impacted by the Windrush scandal. In 2017, thousands of legal residents who arrived from Commonwealth countries from the late 1940s to early 1970s were misclassified as illegal immigrants and were wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights. Their experience inspired Sir Lenny Henry to write and perform his very first one man show from the perspective of August, a grocer and father based in the West Mid...
May 16, 2023•28 min
Babita Sharma meets young people from around the world working to fight climate change, including a Kenyan engineer who has designed a solar powered fridge which can be used to transport vaccines on a bike, a Californian teenager who has designed a wind turbine for use in cities, and South Korean protesters taking their Government to court. She also meets Nobel Chemistry Laureate Frances H. Arnold, the co-chair of President Biden’s science commission. Generation Change is a co-production of the ...
May 15, 2023•27 min
Megha Mohan talks to young people working to diversify science, technology, engineering and maths - fields that will be crucial to the future of our planet, but whose workforces remain predominantly male. She also hears how Nobel Prize-winning astronomer Andrea Ghez overcame gender barriers in her career in science. Generation Change is a co-production of the BBC and Nobel Prize Outreach
May 15, 2023•27 min
Babita Sharma talks to young people who are trying to save lives by tackling taboos around organ donation in countries including India and the UK. She also speaks to Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth, who discusses his work on kidney donation. Generation Change is a co-production of the BBC and Nobel Prize Outreach
May 15, 2023•27 min
Babita Sharma meets young people trying to solve global food problems, including a Lebanese man who worked to feed people after the deadly bomb blast in 2019, and an American woman whose work connecting charities to excess food from restaurants is spreading around the world. She also learns about the work of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning World Food Programme. Generation Change is a co-production of the BBC and Nobel Prize Outreach
May 15, 2023•27 min
In recent days, Russia staged its annual Victory Day military parade, celebrating the defeating of Nazi Germany during World War Two, which ended in 1945. Host James Reynolds hears from two women in Moscow, against the backdrop of Victory Day. They talk about the roles their families played during the war 78 years ago, and how they feel about those fighting in Ukraine today. We also bring together three men in Russia to hear their thoughts about fighting for their country.
May 13, 2023•25 min
Cindy Sui discovers how the Chè-lâm Presbyterian Church in central Taipei has been helping Hong Kong activists who have fled to Taiwan since the introduction of the national security law. The Lunar New Year is a time when families usually come together and celebrate, but the Hongkongers that Cindy meets are unable to return to their homeland. Instead, they find support and a sense of community at the church which offers a service in Cantonese. In addition to spiritual support, the church meets t...
May 12, 2023•27 min
In the chaos following Turkey’s devastating earthquake in February, Omar was separated from his son Ahmed after both were pulled alive from the collapsed ruins of their home. Omar lost his first born and his wife but believes Ahmed could still be alive. Many children went missing in the aftermath of the earthquake. Some ended up in hospitals or childrens’ homes on the other side of the country and families have spent months trying to locate them. But for many of the estimated 3.5 million Syrian ...
May 11, 2023•28 min
In recent years, dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians, has made Los Angeles his home. The city is rich with art, fashion and intriguing social structures, all of which are key sources of inspiration for Kevin’s novels. Los Angeles has become his living and breathing studio, and going out into the city is a huge part of his creative process. In the first of several ‘deep dives’ into the LA life that sustains Kevin creatively, we attend the opening of a new show (fea...
May 08, 2023•28 min
The fighting between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces started around three weeks ago. Since then, the UN estimates that more than a 100,000 people have fled the country and more than a third of a million have been displaced within Sudan. Host James Reynolds hears from some of those who have been forced to flee their country.
May 06, 2023•25 min
According to the national census, the number of British people who say they follow Shamanism as a religion has risen twelvefold in the space of 10 years. While the numbers are still low – at around 8,000 followers - the increase has put pressure on those who have followed the practice for years. The BBC’s Amber Haque visits a British shaman to find out what Shamanism is, what it means to her and her circle of believers and why they think it should be taken seriously.
May 05, 2023•28 min
