Lives Less Ordinary
by BBC World Service
Latest episode
Marlon James and the exorcism that changed him
Marlon James and the exorcism that changed him
About this podcast
Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. 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. Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected.
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Episodes
The newest 50 of 249 episodes
- Marlon James and the exorcism that changed him · 40 minGrowing up gay in Jamaica, the Booker Prize winning writer fought against his sexuality. Marlon James is now one of the world’s most celebrated writers, but he grew up feeling…
- Rewind: The woman who brought down Elizabeth Holmes · 3 minWe’ve got a fascinating episode of Lives Less Ordinary coming your way later today, but we would hate to leave you without a juicy story to listen to before then, so we thought…
- A shipwrecked sailor’s return from the dead · 39 minEleven days lost at sea, presumed drowned. How Mick Doleman made it home to his sweetheart. When 18-year-old Australian sailor Mick Doleman leaves for what should be a routine…
- The missionary linguist who lost his faith · 40 minDan Everett travelled to the Amazon to convert the Piraha people. It didn’t go to plan. Dan was a young Christian missionary, and his talent for linguistics put him on a mission…
- Why didn't they tell me I was black? Part 2 · 38 minIt took years for Lacey Tezino to discover the truth about her parents – what she found out would upturn everything she thought she knew about her own identity. When Lacey left…
- Why didn't they tell me I was black? Part 1 · 40 minLacey Tezino grew up in rural Texas in a white family, and was told her Hawaiian mother died when she was a baby. But none of this was true. Lacey was born in the US city of…
- Forget Cool Runnings: Inside the real Jamaican bobsled team · 40 minEx army officer Devon Harris was part of the historic Olympic bobsleigh team that inspired the film Cool Runnings, but Hollywood only got half the story. Devon grew up in a tough…
- My mother made me ill for years until a doctor unmasked her · 41 minNina Blom's early years were plagued by mysterious, serious illnesses. Growing up in the Netherlands in the 1970s and 80s, Nina seemed at first to be a typical child, playing…
- America’s most wanted: my family on the run, part 2 · 32 minWhen Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born his parents were fugitives. They were the leaders of the Weather Underground – a violent revolutionary group opposed to the Vietnam war. Most…
- America’s most wanted: my family on the run, part 1 · 36 minIn some ways Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s childhood was normal; his parents went to work and played with him in the park. Though in other ways it was anything but: moving between safe…
- Love Stories: Told by you · 50 minNow it’s your turn to share. A bonus episode to end our Love Stories series where you tell the world how your true love grew. Fiona Smiley Wright got in touch about an…
- Love Stories: The matchmaker · 39 minAt 83, Gina Ceccarelli thought the romantic chapter of her life was over. Then she met Dwight Moberg, a 91-year-old widower from California. There was just one complication, Gina…
- Love Stories: Our own romcom · 40 minKaran and Roshan’s real-life romance inspired their film A Nice Indian Boy, and the success of the Hollywood/Bollywood romcom has healed many family rifts on the way. Karan Soni…
- Love Stories: My two husbands · 46 minKris Armstrong and Brandon Smith took their marriage vows seriously. But after Brandon suffered a major brain injury, Kris made a decision that led to their unique blended…
- Love Stories: Do you remember me? · 42 minA secret tore apart their teenage love. Four decades later, they got a second chance. In 1970s Nottingham, two teenagers fell head-over-heels in love when Mark Bethel arrived…
- Love Stories: Finding you in a warzone · 45 minIn 2016 Janay was a journalist in London and needed footage of the conflict in Syria, so contacted camera operator Habak in Aleppo. What followed was a love story neither saw…
- Introducing: Love Stories · 2 minIntroducing a new season of five remarkable true stories in which love rises above prejudice, waits decades, crosses oceans and survives war. From India to Italy, Syria to the…
- I crash-landed inside an active volcano · 41 minChris Duddy survived 28 hours in Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano after his helicopter crashed. Cinematographer Chris Duddy has worked on some of Hollywood’s biggest movies like Titanic…
- Why I don't hate the person who tried to kill me · 42 minIn July 2011 Bjorn Ihler was a 20-year-old performing arts student and a member of the youth division of the Norwegian Labour Party. He participated in the Party's summer camp on…
- The prisoner who was forced to celebrate a World Cup victory · 39 minMiriam Lewin was never much interested in football. Growing up in Buenos Aires, she cared far more about politics than the team her family supported. But in 1978, when Argentina…
- My father and the curse of the golden egg · 40 minSerena Kutchinsky was 10 years old when her jeweller father Paul unveiled his masterpiece to the world: a giant, golden, diamond-encrusted egg. Paul had recently taken over the…
- I had a baby – then lost my memory, part 2 · 39 minAfter an undiagnosed case of pre-eclampsia caused catastrophic brain damage and amnesia, Samina Ali returned home from hospital to begin a long recovery. At 29, she found herself…
- I had a baby – then lost my memory, part 1 · 41 minWhen Samina Ali gave birth to her first child in California in 1999, what should have been a joyful moment quickly turned into a medical emergency. An undiagnosed case of the…
- Could a sitcom save a man from death row? · 40 minJuan Catalan was facing the death penalty for a murder he didn’t commit. There was one man he thought could save him: US comedian Larry David. On 12 May 2003, Juan attended a…
- I was kidnapped by North Korea · 33 minIn the 1970s and 80s, a spate of mysterious disappearances were reported along Japan’s coast. One of those was 19-year-old nurse Hitomi Soga, who was walking with her mother when…
- I was forced to rob my own bank, part 2 · 24 minMany years after he’d held a gun to her daughter’s head, Michelle wrote to Robert Ortiz seeking closure. It took him years to write back – and then they met. In 2000, Michelle…
- I was forced to rob my own bank, part 1 · 39 minIn 2000, armed men burst into Michelle Renee's home and held her child hostage while she was forced to rob her own bank. None of them could have predicted what happened next…
- Kangaroo Dundee: I gave it all up to become a ‘kangaroo mum’ · 40 minChris 'Brolga' Barns fell in love with joeys and became a kangaroo 'mum'. He rescues orphaned baby kangaroos, or joeys, carrying them around in a pillowcase to mimic their mum’s…
- I'm a champion boxer, but couldn't tell my mum · 40 minRamla Ali's family fled Somalia and settled in the UK; she then went from overweight bullied child to champion boxer and model who later brought the sport back to her homeland…
- Strangers to coworkers to friends to...sisters? · 40 minCassandra Madison and Julia Tinetti met working at the same bar in their 20s and were struck by how similar they looked. Their adoption records didn't match, but a surprise gift…
- Taught to kill – my childhood under the Khmer Rouge · 50 minSeparated from her family and trained as a child soldier, Loung Ung's unbreakable spirit helped her survive Pol Pot’s regime, which killed nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s…
- Bonus: Dear Daughter: Surviving my daughter's killing · 24 minWhen 19-year-old Ann from Florida, USA was shot by her boyfriend in 2010, her family were thrust into a nightmare, one that meant taking the agonising decision to withdraw her…
- I was taken as a baby…I didn’t know who I was, part 2 · 39 minJackie makes sporting history for Ireland and uncovers the truth about her past. Taken from her mother as a baby and raised in an Irish institution, Jackie McCarthy O’Brien grew…
- I was taken as a baby, I didn’t know who I was, part 1 · 39 minA black girl in a white town, Jackie’s made to grow up silenced and alone. This episode contains outdated racial language that some might find offensive. Jackie McCarthy O’Brien…
- Skepta’s Mum: How I raised a rap legend · 22 minIfy Adenuga grew up with strict parents. As a mum, she rewrote the rulebook and encouraged creativity in her children, with her son Skepta becoming an award-winning music artist…
- Me, dad and the zombie chickens · 39 minFilmmaker Lloyd Kaufman railed against Hollywood his whole career as the founder of cult B-movie production house, Troma, while his daughter Lily-Hayes dreamt only of fitting in…
- Growing up black in a white family – the truth behind my birth · 39 minM People star Andrew Lovell’s home life hid a terrible – yet beautiful – secret. It would take him decades to find out the truth. At the height of his fame, drummer Andrew…
- Music was my salvation: the homeless man and the piano · 39 minWhile Francois Pierron was homeless in London he taught himself to play a public piano at St Pancras train station – from scratch. His mastery of music helped change his future…
- Hercules: the grizzly bear who became family · 40 minMaggie Robin raised a bear cub who grew into an extraordinary companion. When Maggie Robin and her wrestler husband Andy brought home a bear cub in 1970s Scotland, their friends…
- Sects, lies and videotape: a Syrian story, part 2 · 43 minWhile filming in rebel-held Syria, Loubna Mrie is falsely accused of being a spy – an accusation that spirals into a life-threatening ordeal, triggering the deepest loss of her…
- Sects, lies and videotape: a Syrian story, part 1 · 43 minFrom a powerful Alawite family in Syria, Loubna Mrie trusted the Assad regime – until witnessing its violent crackdown led her to defy loyalty and secretly film the uprising. In…
- The couple who foiled New Zealand’s biggest drugs plot · 39 minAn ordinary couple foiled the country's biggest drugs deal, all by doing a good deed. It involves a boat, a fake funeral at sea and the criminal underworld's least able seamen…
- I bought Macclesfield FC while drunk and it saved my life · 42 minRob Smethurst bought a bankrupt football club while his life was unravelling – then they went on to make football history and save him in the process. Entrepreneur Rob Smethurst…
- Colm Tóibín: How an Irish boy with a stammer found his voice · 41 minColm Tóibín is a celebrated Irish writer, but as a child words didn't come easily. Navigating grief as a boy when his father died, he developed a stammer. Instead of talking…
- The gay Kenyan boyband star who refused to be defeated · 37 minWillis Chimano is one of Kenya’s biggest pop stars. With the boyband Sauti Sol, he’s won a string of awards and even danced with President Barack Obama. But behind the success…
- Laughter saved me: the comedian turning tragedy into comedy · 41 minWhen she was 14, Krystal Evans survived a lethal house fire. Years later, to come to terms with what she’d experienced, she turned it into a stand-up show. The women in Krystal's…
- Living a lie: discovering my dad faked who he was · 44 minJoanne Briggs had always thought of her dad as a bit of a superhero. But he was hiding a dark secret. She only saw him a couple of times a year during her childhood in the UK…
- Fatima Whitbread: from abandoned baby to world champion · 41 minFatima Whitbread grew up in a UK children’s home. She found both a mother and a coach in one person – going on to break the javelin world record and become an Olympic medallist…
- One suitcase, three kids: a broke scientist pursues a dream · 41 minWhen Ijeoma Uchegbu arrived back in the UK as a single mum of three young children she soon found herself living in a homeless shelter; now she is a pioneer in the field of…
- I broke the most important rule: don't get attached · 41 minSwedish youth worker Nicolas Lunabba had one strict rule: never get attached to the kids you help. Then 13-year-old Elijah moved in — and turned his mentor’s flat into a home. In…
