Sideways

It’s December 2013 and Toni Osborne is struggling, emotionally and financially. She’s five pence short of keeping her electricity on over Christmas. As she heads out into the night to ask her local shopkeeper for help, a homeless man appears and asks for some change. This is Jack Richardson, and when she bursts into tears, it prompts him to give Toni his last five pence. This simple act of giving...

In the 1970s, Sandra Bundy was working hard at her job at the Department of Corrections in Washington DC. She loved her job, but just turning up to work was becoming unbearable. Sandra’s male supervisors kept propositioning her for sex, asking her out on dates and making inappropriate comments. When she reported the problem to her boss’s boss, he tried to proposition her too. As the situation esca...

In 2113, a riddle will be solved under the Eiffel Tower. Matthew Syed tells the story of a riddle hidden in the video game Trials Evolution (Ubisoft Redlynx) that became a worldwide treasure hunt that’s yet to be solved, as he considers the role of legacy. Matthew asks how thinking beyond our lifetimes could make life in the present more impactful and might also challenge us to consider how we mee...

In the early 1970s, Al Garthwaite and some friends move in together in Leeds. They’re about to embark on a big experiment.  They’re living communally, sharing clothes, cooking, and housework. But that’s not all. Inspired by that oft repeated phrase, “it takes a village to raise a child”, they’ve decided to share parenting, helping to raise each other's offspring. What follows is an unconventional...

The story of how Dr William Key and his super smart horse “Beautiful” Jim Key became one of the biggest acts in America, only to disappear into historical obscurity. But not before they made a profound impact on millions of American children, who pledged to always be kind to animals, as a result of witnessing their extraordinary partnership. Dr William Key was a former enslaved man who became a we...

On Armistice Day 2015, Mel gets a phone call from her son’s school, asking her to come in. When she arrives, she finds the car park filled with ambulances and police cars, emergency services buzzing around. It began with someone fainting in assembly and then, like dominoes, more teenagers began to collapse. Students were sent back to their classrooms, but the outbreak spread, with more and more pe...

Matthew Syed introduces season five, which looks at being less cynical, family and legacy.

Nicosia, Cyprus, 2018. Kiri Sofocleous sits down to write a Facebook message to a man she has never met. It has been 40 years since Kiri saw her childhood best friend but she has never forgotten her. Could this be the key to reuniting? Matthew Syed tells the story of one woman’s determination to find a beloved friend, lost for four decades due to a move abroad, a political divide and a mislaid add...

Matthew Syed follows the story of Bernice Bennett, a woman driven to uncover the truth behind a treasured family portrait. When Bernice was growing up, she was always told how much she looked like her grandmother, Mattie Kemp Alexander. Looking at her grandmother’s portrait, she saw her own eyes looking back. This woman’s face was familiar, and yet Bernice knew so little about her. Feeling the cal...

In 1980, underdog English table tennis player John Hilton stunned audiences with his style of play, effortlessly confounding talented European opponents. In this episode of Sideways, Matthew puts his tactics under the microscope to discover how Hilton used deception to fool his opponents, and use their strengths against them. Deception in sport, Matthew argues, is not underhand, so long as it’s wi...

A pigeon sparks a spy hunt. The clock is ticking and the bunker is calling. In this final episode of our four part nuclear series, Matthew Syed examines the current nuclear landscape. In this complex, multiplayer context how do we create a safer world? We begin in Kashmir, the disputed territory between India and Pakistan, where mutual suspicion has led to nuclear expansion and a delicate balance...

Angie Zelter is on her way to Loch Goil in Scotland. It’s a beautiful summer’s day, and her friends have packed a picnic. But that’s not the real reason they’re there. Angie has an urgent message to deliver to the world about nuclear weapons. And she’s going to deliver it through an act of destruction. In this episode, Matthew Syed looks at the danger that nuclear weapons pose, even if nations nev...

In 1961, a group of American officials decided to play a game of war. Sitting around a table, they tried imagining a nuclear crisis - and how it could be resolved. The outcome of their thought experiment surprised them all, raising far reaching questions about the strength of America’s nuclear strategy. Once nuclear weapons were unleashed into our world in the 1940s, it was obvious that a complete...

It’s a little girl’s eighth birthday. She wakes to a sight that looks like the end of the world. A radioactive mushroom cloud rises 130,000 feet in the air. And the world wakes up to the devastating fallout of nuclear weapons. In this new mini series from Sideways, writer and Times columnist Matthew Syed is calling for a nuclear awakening. Since the end of the Cold War, when relations between two...

In this new mini series from Sideways, Matthew Syed is calling for a nuclear awakening. Since the end of the Cold War, when relations between two of the world’s nuclear superpowers - the former USSR and the USA - seemed more rosy, Matthew argues that many of us have slipped into a kind of comfortable amnesia about the presence of these weapons, these destroyers of worlds. The wake up call came whe...

James Campbell's family were unusual. They were the 'singing family'. Everyone on their street knew it - and heard it. They would sing at the drop of a hat and James' father had a barbershop quartet. Every Monday evening James would listen attentively to the sumptuous close harmonies and his father taught him and his siblings to harmonise too. James took this into his adult years. It gave him a li...

Flevoland, the Netherlands, 1968. A new patch of land is being carved out of the sea. Destined initially for agriculture or industry, when nature begins to take over, authorities decide to protect the new Earth as a nature reserve - the Oostvaardersplassen. In this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed uses the story of this pioneering nature reserve to reveal our conceptions, and misconceptions of th...

Back in the 1960s, Bill Strickland was a listless teenager but life as he knew it was about to change forever. One afternoon, while skipping class, something caught his eye - the door to one of the art rooms was ajar and he could hear the whirring of a potters wheel. Stopping a moment to take a look, Bill beheld a sight that would change the course of his life. At the wheel was a ceramics teacher,...

On a January night in Manhattan, a team of lawyers is working to crack open an organised crime case. And at the centre of it all, is Eunice Carter - the first black woman to graduate from Fordham Law and the first African-American woman to pass the New York state bar. Matthew Syed tells the story of how Carter’s brilliance and meticulous attention to detail blew open a case that would bring down t...

Boston, Massachusetts, 1985. Dr Joe Upton is struggling to reattach a severed ear onto a little boy. Using incredible skill and the best in modern equipment he re-attaches the arteries, but the veins are proving difficult. Blood keeps getting congested and the little ear is turning black. Just when it looks like all is lost, Joe remembers leeches. Once used to treat every malady imaginable, the va...

Lee Chambers is an undeniable success. From his parents' single bedroom, with the boiler humming away day and night, he founds an e-commerce video games business that gives him a healthy bank account in seven months. Next comes the car, the house, the fancy holidays with his wife. But all the time, Lee feels like a total failure. Everyone is telling him he’s a success, but he can’t see it. He’s on...

At a school assembly, 16-year-old Simon Day discovers an acute fear of public speaking. Faced with a crowd of expectant faces, panic begins to set in. Soon, Simon finds that words fail him at almost every turn, threatening his career, relationships and, ultimately, his happiness. Matthew Syed follows Simon’s journey to find his voice, uncovering the science of how we speak and the complex factors...

Arlene Blum has scaled some of the most treacherous peaks in the Himalayas. When she’s not climbing mountains, she’s fighting to get toxic chemicals banned from everyday household goods. Arlene says that her experience leading expeditions has helped her acquire the personal skills and attributes required to push through bold new science policies. Matthew Syed asks whether transferable resilience f...

Matthew Syed introduces the new series, which focuses on endurance, courage & resilience.

Matthew Syed has come to a horrible realisation about himself. He is in danger of becoming a big head. He’s worried that, with a successful podcast and best-selling books, every positive affirmation he receives is only serving to inflate his sense of entitlement. The Greeks had a word for this - hubris. In the final episode of this series, Matthew is on a mission to prevent his tragic downfall by...