Lives Less Ordinary

In the ring, Blair finds calm amidst the chaos of his life. Back in the US Blair Cobbs falls again on hard times; homeless in Philadelphia his boxing dream seems out of reach. But a string of lucky breaks may just tip the balance. Blair’s brazen alter-ego who’s kept him alive thus far now has a name – Blair ‘the Flair’ – and some recognition in the ring. But could ‘the Flair’ take him all the way...

From Beverly Hills to hiding from the law with his dad, Blair’s seen it all. To help him get through the tough times – and there’d be quite a few of those – Blair created a separate persona. This was the fearless alter ego he could rely on to swoop in and save the day. The Peter Pan to his Lost Boy. And Blair was certainly lost now - would he make it back out of Mexico alive? Clips: Clueless/ Amy...

A baby left in a car, another in a telephone box. It would take decades to find out why. When he was just a baby, David McBride made headline news in Northern Ireland. He had been discovered in the front seat of a stranger’s car, with no trace of who had left him there or why. David was a foundling, and as he grew up he started to want answers. Then, a chance encounter led him to Helen Ward. She w...

Fergal Keane's work as a war correspondent was destroying him, but he couldn't stop. It was his job as a BBC journalist to help the audience make sense of the madness of war, but he knew there was another more troubling reason he was drawn to these violent situations. They gave him something he couldn't get anywhere else in the same way. A massive rush of adrenaline and a huge dose of validation....

From convent to marriage to factory floor, Thivya Rakini will stand up for herself, and you. From an early age she's fought for what's right. As a child living in Tamil Nadu, she stopped eating so her parents would send her to the school of her choice. She left behind life in a convent, then a marriage, and went on to defy expectations as a working single mother. She’s now the leader of a union ad...

Debra Lampshire started hearing voices aged five. Comforting at first, they soon took control. The voices became so visceral and intense that Debra had to spend 18 years in a psychiatric hospital. Then, a chance friendship with a car mechanic gave her the tools to restore her life, but she’d have to learn to coexist with the voices that once tormented her. If you need support relating to any of th...

Pilot Firoz Khimji witnessed his country's wars from above. Then conflict came for him. For most of his life, Uganda had been unstable, but he'd been able to train as a commercial pilot despite the violence. When qualified, Firoz took a job with Ugandan Airlines. This was the 1980s, and he had to routinely fly between territories controlled by different armed groups. War was ever-present, but Firo...

Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil risked everything when he faced his parents and society He was next in line to a centuries-old royal dynasty in the Indian state of Gujarat - and grew up in the 1970s in a gilded cage. His family's desire to keep his blue blood away from what they called ‘commoners’ meant that, growing up, he missed out on formative experiences like making friends. After a failed marri...

Journalist Ben Raines went in search of a sunken ship with a dark history. A phone call out of the blue had set him on his hunt for the Clotilda, an American vessel that had illegally transported enslaved West African people to the US. On arrival it had been burnt, and hidden deep in the Alabama swamp. The story of the ship and its passengers had been kept alive by generations of people descended...

Nakuset blocked out painful memories of being removed from her indigenous Canadian family Nakuset only goes by one name and it means "The Sun" in her indigenous Canadian culture. Born into an abusive household, her early days were difficult and it wasn't long before she and her sister Sonya were taken into care by social services. This was the 1970s, and there was a widespread policy of taking ind...

Javier Zamora travelled alone from El Salvador to the US when he was just nine years old. He had been living with relatives after his parents migrated to the US, but longed to be in his mother’s arms. His parents hired a ‘coyote’, or people smuggler, to bring him across the borders, but the trip went wrong. Javier was abandoned by the coyote, and found himself reliant on strangers for survival as...

In 2020, Mo’min Swaitat unearthed a treasure trove of lost Palestinian music in an abandoned building. Out of thousands of dusty cassettes there was one that caught his eye: a bright yellow tape, completely unmarked except for a handwritten label that said ‘Intifada.’ Mo’min loved the music and a series of clues led him to Hanan Awwad, an elderly Palestinian woman living in occupied East Jerusalem...

Mo’min Swaitat unearthed a vast trove of forgotten Palestinian music. Not only did it hold long-lost recordings of his own Bedouin family, but also a mysterious yellow cassette of protest songs set to an electro-disco beat. Mo’min became captivated by the yellow tape. It would open up a world of underground music from one of the most turbulent times in Palestinian history, the first Intifada. But...

At 18 Nikki Owen set fire to the family home – and she didn’t know why. Nikki awaited trial in solitary confinement, but her father searched for answers in medical science, and started working on a ground-breaking legal defence to get her out. If you've been affected by any of subjects in this programme you can find support and additional information below: BBC Action Line: https://www.bbc.co.uk/a...

How the friendship of a stranger helped Betsy Sailor when she needed it most. Betsy was living alone at university in the late 1970s when a man broke into her apartment and raped her at knifepoint. He was later caught, and it turned out he was a student, and a player on the successful Penn State football team. Taking him to court was a daunting task but then a fellow football player, Irv Pankey, s...

Analía’s father was accused of being a government torturer — he said it was a lie. A phone call turned Analía Kalinec’s comfortable life upside down. Her father was accused of crimes committed during the Argentine dictatorship twenty years previously, when around 30,000 people were disappeared by security forces. He denied it, but Analía decided to investigate. Her findings would change her view o...

Sue-Ellen Doherty was trained by her parents to spy for Australia during the Cold War. For Sue-Ellen Kusher, nee Doherty, growing up in the suburbs of Brisbane was far from normal. Both her parents worked for the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation, ASIO, and in the early days of their marriage, they brought up their three children to be part of the family business. It was the 1950s, and R...

Jim is deep undercover in North Korea — but will he find proof of illegal weapons deals... He'd been sent to the isolated country by a documentary film-maker called Mads Brugger, to pose as a fake investor interested in arms. Jim, Mads and the team had spent years infiltrating a North Korean network in Europe, but now they were on North Korean turf the risks were bigger than ever. Jim is treated l...

Jim Latrache-Qvortrup posed as a weapons dealer to expose a North Korean criminal network. Jim was an unusual secret agent. He'd grown up poor in Denmark, and had gone on to become a drug dealer to the rich and famous in Copenhagen. After years in prison, he was reformed but bored. Then, a filmmaker called Mads Brügger approached him, and asked him to take part in a high-stakes sting in North Kore...

In September 2020, Nicholas Opiyo awoke to a commotion in his flat. There had been a robbery and all his personal electronics had been stolen. He says he tracked his devices to a shocking and impenetrable location: the headquarters of Uganda’s military intelligence. He believes he was targeted because of his work. The Ugandan authorities chose not to respond to these allegations. Opiyo, as he pref...

Silibil N’ Brains found fame as fake American rappers - but how long can you live a lie? A record deal with Sony, celebrity parties and touring with his heroes, life looked good for Gavin Bain, one half of the duo. But with fame came visibility, the pressure mounted and they could no longer outrun the truth. Gavin's written a book about his undercover life called Straight Outta Scotland and is mak...

The Scottish rappers who fooled the music industry. Gavin Bain was one half of Silibil N’ Brains, a Californian rap duo on the cusp of greatness. But there was a problem - the story of these hip hop stars was fake. Gavin’s never even been to America. Film clips: The Mask/Chuck Russell/  New Line Cinema and Dark Horse Entertainment. The Secret of My Success/Herbert Ross/Rastar Beetlejuice/Tim Burto...

Donnie Dunagan was a Disney child star in the 1930s before becoming a US Marine. He was born in 1934 and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, in the midst of the Great Depression. After winning a talent show aged four he was scouted and whisked to Hollywood where he starred in several movies – including a role as the voice of Walt Disney’s iconic animated deer Bambi in 1942. But the Second World War wou...

Growing up as the son of a sex worker and a Black US soldier in South Korea in the 70s, Milton Washington was seen as an outcast, and "not Korean." He couldn't even get a birth certificate. Still, he was loved and protected by his mum, the two of them against the world. She told him his dad was in America, a land of flying cars and ice cream mountains — and that was where Milton wanted to be, too....

Growing up as the son of a sex worker and a black US soldier in South Korea in the '70s, Milton Washington was seen as an outcast, and "not Korean". He couldn't even get a birth certificate. Still, he was loved and protected by his mum, the two of them against the world. She told him his dad was in America, a land of flying cars and ice cream mountains - and that was where Milton wanted to be, too...