The Documentary Podcast

It started in the West with influencers like Andrew Tate. Now the Manosphere has gone global, with copycats from Africa to Latin America attracting huge audiences and the cash to match. In this investigation, reporter Jacqui Wakefield explores the booming industry in Kenya, where social media algorithms are fuelling a growing gender divide. She meets one of the biggest Kenyan influencers, Andrew K...

It started in the West with influencers like Andrew Tate. Now the manosphere has gone global, with copycats from Africa to Latin America attracting huge audiences and the cash to match. In Episode One of a two-part investigation, reporter Jacqui Wakefield explores the booming industry in Mexico, where social media algorithms are fuelling a growing gender divide. She follows one of the biggest infl...

Every year during Brazil’s carnival celebrations, samba schools are tasked with creating elaborate parades based around a unique theme, from which they build huge floats, compose a song, and choreograph an entire visual spectacle. Tom Raine follows one of São Paulo’s oldest samba schools, Águia de Ouro, in the final stages of creating their carnival parade for their most important event of the yea...

In 2017, five men digging in an open pit found the third largest diamond ever unearthed in West Africa. It was dubbed the Peace Diamond, in memory of the brutal civil war that had ravaged large parts of the region in the 1990s – a war driven in part by factions competing for control of the diamond trade. When the Peace Diamond sold for $6.5 million at auction in New York, the government pledged so...

New Year’s Eve in Sydney is more than the 12 o’clock show. It is an event that takes over an entire city. Fireworks are launched from the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House, there are barges positioned across the Harbour, there are rooftops around the city with pyrotechnics, as well as lighting projections on the boats on the harbour, Luna Park and the bridge pylons. It is a year in...

The story of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rise and fall has been gripping France. There are allegations of a secret pact with a dictator and unexplained meetings between figures close to government and a known terrorist. And so much cash that party workers do not know what to do with it. The former French President was jailed last year for conspiring to fund his 2007 election campaign...

'Virtual farewells' have become a trend on Russian social media. AI generated videos, depicting soldiers who have been killed in the war and paid for by their families, are being produced by AI artists. They show fantastical scenes of soldiers ascending to heaven; portrayals of their family members as guardian angels hovering over the front line; or sometimes little boys imagining a heroic future...

Earlier this month, a volcanic eruption, which sent a plume of ash some 10km into the sky, killed three people hiking up Mount Dukono in Indonesia. The tourists had climbed the mountain despite official warnings. It is the latest incident in recent years where tourists have been killed visiting an active volcano. We explore the attraction of volcanoes, as well as hearing about the extreme danger t...

Forty years ago, the world’s worst nuclear accident took place at Chernobyl, in what was then the Soviet Union. When news of the disaster began to emerge beyond the Iron Curtain, one of those paying close attention was Adi Roche in Ireland. At the time, Adi was working as a peace educator, teaching about nuclear weapons and Cold War tensions. She went on to found Chernobyl Children International,...

A personal account of day-to-day life in Iran told through the conversations of two Iranian sisters – one in the UK, the other in the Iranian city of Shiraz. Since the outbreak of war at the end of February, a near total internet blackout and a shutdown of international phone lines by the Iranian authorities has meant limited information has got out of the country. But the sisters have made record...

Kenya is the latest African country to increase fuel prices citing the US-Israel war with Iran. While announcing one of the steepest pump price increments in recent times, the government reduced Value Added Tax (VAT) on fuel products from 16% to 8%, as the country's political opposition threatens street demonstrations if measures to lower prices further are not taken. In this episode, we explore i...

Nadia Marcinko, originally Marcinková, was born in Slovakia and met Jeffrey Epstein as an 18-year-old model. Later, she became a successful aircraft pilot. For seven years, she was Epstein’s main girlfriend. And she’s one of four women that US prosecutors named in a 2008 plea deal as his “potential co-conspirators”. But she’s never been accused of any crime. And she’s described herself a victim wh...

Rachel Naylor visits the Booker Prize-winning author Thomas Keneally in his home in Sydney, Australia, to see how he writes his latest book. He gives Rachel a tour of his neighbourhood Manly, a seaside suburb in the Northern Beaches, famous for its ferry, surfing and his beloved Sea Eagles, the rugby league team. Rachel accompanies Thomas, known for writing Schindler’s List, on his daily walk arou...

Listener Ndanusa in Ghana, is gazing up at the stars, and wondering what keeps our universe in balance? Ndanusa knows a thing or two about the stars, and he knows that they use up hydrogen as they burn, and release helium. And he’s wondering, is there something out there which does the opposite? Something that uses up helium, and produces hydrogen, to keep the universe in perfect, chemical equilib...

Until the end of March this year, BBC News Russian was the only source of independent reporting in Belarus, where journalism has been suppressed. Around two dozen independent journalists are currently behind bars, with many more forced into exile by the government of Alexander Lukashenko. Then, on March 25th, Belarus added the BBC to a list of extremist materials, meaning that it is now an offense...

It’s just over six weeks since the ship, MV Hondius, left Argentina for a cruise visiting remote islands in the South Atlantic. A month later, three passengers had died. The World Health Organisation identified the probable cause as hantavirus – a rodent-borne disease that the victims most likely contracted in south America. We bring together Christian in Germany and Lorne in Canada to share their...

Anna was just 25, and newly married living near Oxford when she suffered a massive stroke, caused by a tumour in her heart. It initially left her locked in – unable to let the world around her know that she was even conscious. Mike Wooldridge hears Anna’s extraordinary story: the sheer terror she felt when she realised she was unable to move a muscle or make a sound; the confusion of not knowing w...

The Natural History Museum of London is getting ready to move 28 million of its precious specimens to a new state-of-the-art home. Imagine moving tens of millions of delicate animal and plant specimens, gathered from all across the world, over the centuries. Some are as big as a bus, some so tiny you need tweezers to pack them. Some are millions of years old. How to move 350 taxidermy tortoises? T...

First, the story of Mike Flynn whose remarkable resilience and incredible fitness helped achieve his goal to play college football at the age of fifty-nine but at its heart, his is a story of redemption. Living with pain is sadly all too common. That was the fate that befell Meg Robson Austin. But she never allowed herself to think it was too late to win back her life and so she set about a journe...

Since 2023, Sudan has been engulfed by a brutal civil war. More than 150,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaced. The war began as a power struggle between the Sudanese military and the powerful paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The capital Khartoum was the epicentre of the conflict. Millions fled as fighting wrecked the city. In 2025, the Sudanese military fi...

Mika Obanda creates vibrant mosaics using egg shells in his Kenyan studio. He gets the eggshells from local hotels and paints them after cleaning and shaping them. Last summer Frenny Jowi visited him as he prepared his latest collection, Trying to Blossom, for an exhibition. But then disaster struck - so Frenny has been back to find out how Mika has coped with hardship, with support from his local...

Why don’t I have a father? Cathy is 10 years old when she starts asking questions. The secret her mum Maggie is forced to reveal changes everything. Years later, when lawyers and a geneticist turn up in their hometown in Kenya to take DNA samples, Maggie hopes they can help her finally learn the truth. Presented by Ivana Davidovic.

At 93, Paul Biya is the oldest head of state in the world. In November he will have been the leader of Cameroon for 44 years and is currently serving his eighth consecutive term. It was announced in April that for the first time in Biya's leadership, the position of vice-president would be created in the country. This new post has drawn attention to the lack of certainty within Cameroon over who w...

As Sir David Attenborough celebrates his 100th birthday, we bring together conservationists and film-makers to discuss the impact of his long career, and the influence he has had on how we think about nature. We hear how his tv programmes and books have reached audiences around the world and the inspiration they have provided. Wendy Kirorei describes how growing up in Kenya, Sir David’s programmes...

Thirty years after the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, some convicted perpetrators are returning to the communities they once devastated. Felin Gakwaya travels to eastern Rwanda to meet both survivors and perpetrators living side by side again. He hears from Daniel Gasangwa, who went to visit the men who killed members of his family after they were released from prison — and told them not to...