Lives Less Ordinary

Have you ever locked eyes with a stranger and wondered, "What’s their story?" Featuring a new season of five remarkable true love stories from around the world.

World Service,235 episodes

Episodes

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Love Stories: Do you remember me?
A secret tore apart their teenage love. Four decades later, they got a second chance
10 Aug 2026,42 mins
Love Stories: Finding you in a warzone
Janay was a journalist in London who began falling for cameraman Habak in war-torn Syria
03 Aug 2026,44 mins
Introducing: Love Stories
A new season of remarkable true love stories
30 Jul 2026,2 mins
I crash-landed inside an active volcano
Chris Duddy survived 28 hours in Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano after his helicopter crashed
27 Jul 2026,40 mins
Why I don't hate the person who tried to kill me
Bjorn Ihler survived Norway's worst terror attack from a far-right extremist
20 Jul 2026,41 mins
The prisoner who was forced to celebrate a World Cup victory
Miriam Lewin was a political prisoner in 1978 when Argentina won the World Cup
13 Jul 2026,39 mins
My father and the curse of the golden egg
Jeweller Paul Kutchinsky made the world’s biggest golden egg, but it broke his family
06 Jul 2026,40 mins
I had a baby – then lost my memory, part 2
With her past erased, writer Samina Ali must rediscover her son – and herself
29 Jun 2026,39 mins
I had a baby – then lost my memory, part 1
A crisis at birth leaves Samina Ali unable to recognise her husband or newborn son
22 Jun 2026,41 mins
Could a sitcom save a man from death row?
Juan Catalan hoped comedian Larry David could help exonerate him from a murder charge
15 Jun 2026,39 mins
I was kidnapped by North Korea
When Hitomi Soga vanished aged 19, no one in Japan imagined she had been taken by spies
08 Jun 2026,33 mins
I was forced to rob my own bank, part 2
How do you forgive a man who held a gun to your daughter’s head?
01 Jun 2026,23 mins
I was forced to rob my own bank, part 1
In 2000, armed men burst into Michelle Renee's home and held her child hostage
25 May 2026,38 mins
Kangaroo Dundee: I gave it all up to become a ‘kangaroo mum’
Chris 'Brolga' Barns fell in love with joeys and built an orphaned kangaroo sanctuary
18 May 2026,40 mins
I'm a champion boxer, but couldn't tell my mum
A gym class encounter sparked Ramla Ali's rise from bullied child to famous boxer
11 May 2026,40 mins
Strangers to coworkers to friends to...sisters?
Cassandra and Julia were uncannily alike. A chance gift revealed a past neither expected
04 May 2026,39 mins
Taught to kill – my childhood under the Khmer Rouge
Loung Ung was forced to be a child soldier in Cambodia under Pol Pot’s regime
27 Apr 2026,49 mins
Bonus: Dear Daughter: Surviving my daughter's killing
When 19-year-old Ann was killed, her mother chose restorative justice
23 Apr 2026,24 mins,
I was taken as a baby…I didn’t know who I was, part 2
Jackie makes sporting history for Ireland and uncovers the truth about her past
20 Apr 2026,39 mins
I was taken as a baby, I didn’t know who I was, part 1
A black girl in a white town, Jackie’s made to grow up silenced and alone
13 Apr 2026,39 mins
Skepta’s Mum: How I raised a rap legend
Ify Adenuga had very strict parents. As a mum she rewrote the rulebook, nurturing a star
06 Apr 2026,21 mins
Me, dad and the zombie chickens
Lloyd and Lily-Hayes Kaufman on cult horror filmmaking and life in the Tromaverse
30 Mar 2026,38 mins
Growing up black in a white family – the truth behind my birth
Music star Andrew Lovell’s home life hid a terrible – yet beautiful – secret
23 Mar 2026,38 mins
Music was my salvation: the homeless man and the piano
Francois was homeless when he learned to play a train station piano from scratch
16 Mar 2026,39 mins
Hercules: the grizzly bear who became family
Maggie Robin raised a bear cub who grew into an extraordinary companion
09 Mar 2026,40 mins
Sects, lies and videotape: a Syrian story, part 2
Accused of spying in rebel-held Syria, Loubna Mrie faces peril and a shattering loss
02 Mar 2026,42 mins
Sects, lies and videotape: a Syrian story, part 1
Loubna Mrie secretly filmed Syria’s uprising, despite her family’s loyalty to the regime
23 Feb 2026,43 mins
The couple who foiled New Zealand’s biggest drugs plot
An ordinary couple caught up in the country's biggest meth case for doing a good deed
16 Feb 2026,38 mins
I bought Macclesfield FC while drunk and it saved my life
When Rob Smethurst was gripped by addiction, building a football club helped him get out
09 Feb 2026,42 mins
Colm Tóibín: How an Irish boy with a stammer found his voice
He’s now a best-selling author who brought the glitz of Hollywood to his small-town home
02 Feb 2026,41 mins