Lives Less Ordinary

Serena 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 family business, the celebrated London jewellers House of Kutchinsky, and wanted to make his mark, commissioning the production of a spectacular jewelled object like no other. The egg was crafted from 15kg of solid gold, de...

After 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 relearning the basics of daily life – how to walk, speak and make sense of the world around her. She could still communicate in Urdu, the language of her childhood partly spent in India, but much of her recent life in Cal...

When 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 pregnancy disorder pre-eclampsia led to multiple organ failure, strokes, a brain haemorrhage and grand mal seizure. Within hours of delivering her son, Samina fell into a coma. When she woke five days later, she had no memory...

Juan 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 baseball game that he would later say saved his life. It was his local team, the LA Dodgers, versus the Atlanta Braves. The game was exciting, but unremarkable for Juan – apart from a television crew that was filming in his s...

In 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 they were kidnapped. She was blindfolded and dragged to a boat destined to the world's most secretive state, North Korea. But why was she taken? Hitomi's stay in North Korea would last 24 years and include a forced marria...

Many 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 Renee was at home with her seven-year-old daughter Breea when armed men burst through the door. They held Breea hostage while they took Michelle to the bank where she worked. She was told to remove all the money from the vau...

In 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. Michelle Renee was at home with her seven-year-old daughter Breea when armed men burst through the door. They held Breea hostage while they took Michelle to the bank where she worked. She was told to remove all the money from...

Chris '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 pouch. While working as a tour guide in the Australian outback, Brolga would always check the pouches of kangaroos killed by cars lying on the side of the road, where often the joeys would still be alive. The plan was to l...

Ramla 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. Ramla Ali was a baby when her older brother was killed by a stray grenade in the garden of her family home in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the civil war. To keep the rest of their family safe, her parents fled the country via...

Cassandra 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 later revealed the extraordinary truth. From the moment they started chatting, Cassandra and Julia quickly realised they had lots in common: both had been adopted as babies, both grew up in Connecticut, and both had tattoo...

Separated 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 population. In the Chinese tradition of Loung Ung's mother, the element of fire was dangerous in a daughter: too bold, too defiant, too difficult to control. And, according to her, Loung had been born with ‘too much’ of it. But wh...

When 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 life support. In this intensely moving account of violence and loss, Ann’s mother, Kate, tells Namulanta that instead of pursuing the traditional court process, she chose something almost unheard of at the time - restorative...

Jackie 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 up in silence, facing prejudice because of the colour of her skin, and with no real sense of who she was or where she belonged. Jackie shares her story over two episodes of Lives Less Ordinary. In this second part of her s...

A 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 was just a baby when police officers flanked by a nun and a priest came to her unmarried mother’s door in Limerick, Ireland and took her. She would grow up in an industrial school where silence is expected, questions are d...

Ify 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. Ify Adenuga is parent to a musical powerhouse. Her son Skepta is a seminal figure in British culture, helping to propel grime into the mainstream. Ify has always been supportive of her son’s music career, nurturing a crea...

Filmmaker 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. Lloyd Kaufman has been the father of anti-establishment filmmaking for over 50 years. His production company Troma Entertainment is known for its gory, controversial and politically-charged movies. His daughter Lily-Hayes...

M 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 ‘Shovell’ Lovell had everything he’d dreamed of: sex, drugs and regular appearances at the top of the charts with the dance music band M People. But sell-out shows, first-class travel and five-star hotels couldn’t stop the quest...

While 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. Francois had a difficult start in life. He was abandoned as a newborn on the streets of Dakar, Senegal, shortly after his birth in 1994, but was found by police and taken to an orphanage. He was soon adopted by a French co...

Maggie 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 thought they were mad. But the couple raised him as one of the family. Named Hercules, the tiny cub grew into a towering but gentle bear who slept by the fire, played in the garden and travelled everywhere with them. Attit...

While 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 life. In 2011, Loubna Mrie broke from her loyalist family to join Syria’s underground network of activists. She used her Alawite identity – the same minority sect as the ruling Assads – to move through checkpoints and secre...

From 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 2011, 20‑year‑old Loubna Mrie was an English literature student from a high-profile Alawite family, the same minority sect as the Assads who had ruled Syria for decades. For most of her life, loyalty felt like survival. Lo...

An 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. That ordinary couple of 35 years, Ed and Heather we're calling them to protect their identities, lived a quiet life in the far north of New Zealand. Ed is Māori and a well-respected mechanic and fisherman; Heather's the sor...

Rob 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 never planned to become the owner of a football club. In the grip of alcohol addiction, and on a four-day drinking binge, he bought Macclesfield FC – a bankrupt small-town club, way down in the rankings with a crumbling fo...

Colm 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, Colm watched and listened, collecting stories that wove their way into his novels. He's won a string of awards and been nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize three times. His novel Brooklyn was made into a movie starring...

Willis 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, Chimano had a secret: being gay in a country where gay sex is criminalised and people who identify as LGBT+ can experience violence and harassment. Since his childhood, Chimano had been hiding his sexuality but then in 2018...