Sideways

By BBC Radio 4

Personal Journals Society & Culture

What's Sideways about?

Best-selling author Matthew Syed explores the ideas that shape our lives with stories of seeing the world differently.

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LAST EPISODE

50. Take the First Step

08.09.2023

In 2014 Angela Maxwell was feeling stuck. She wanted something fresh, something exciting. After a chance encounter she landed upon her goal - she was going to set off on one of the largest adventures imaginable: a walk around the ...

Sideways episodes:

08.09.2023 50. Take the First Step In 2014 Angela Maxwell was feeling stuck. She wanted something fresh, something exciting. After a chance encounter she landed upon her goal - she was going to set off on one of the largest adventures imaginable: a walk around the ...
08.02.2023 49. Inside Marjorie's Parlour Every Sunday afternoon for over 30 years now, Marjorie Eliot has played a jazz concert in her Harlem apartment for anyone who comes. It all began on a Sunday morning back in 1992, after she was faced with an unimaginable ...
07.26.2023 48. Love Thy Villain Three different women, who lead three very different lives, but all became villains...or did they? In this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed explores what happens when we indulge in the darker, supposedly more "villainous" parts of ourselves. He looks at ...
07.05.2023 47. China's Ping Pong Power: Episode 3 In the final episode of this mini series from Sideways, former professional ping pong player, Matthew Syed, tells the story of how ping pong fared in a more open China. After Chairman Mao's death in 1976, his successor Deng Xiaoping ...
07.05.2023 46. China's Ping Pong Power: Episode 2 Former England international table tennis player, Matthew Syed, continues this three-part mini series from Sideways, with a moment that changed the course of China-US relations - when the hippie American player Glen Cowan met the world's greatest table tennis star ...
07.05.2023 45. China's Ping Pong Power: Episode 1 Matthew Syed is a former Olympic table tennis player for Great Britain. As Matthew travelled in China, competing against some of the world’s greatest players, he realised that ping pong is a game that has played a huge and fascinating ...
06.28.2023 Introducing - China's Ping Pong Power Matthew Syed is a former Olympic table tennis player for Great Britain. As Matthew travelled in China, competing against some of the world’s greatest players, he realised that ping pong is a game that has played a huge and fascinating ...
03.22.2023 44. Matthew’s been telling tales There’s a story Matthew Syed likes to tell. And he’s told it a lot. It’s about a turning point in his life. It’s about learning from a failure and working hard to overcome his shortfalls and come back stronger. Except ...
03.15.2023 43. Do I really sound like that? Julie Matthias is in the middle of a regular shift at her hairdressing salon when she begins to feel really strange. Julie is taken to hospital with the symptoms of a stroke, but doctors can find no evidence she has ...
03.08.2023 42. The Big Reward When Kevin Burkart dove into a murky lake to find a lost wedding ring, he did it for nothing. But did he really gain something much more? In this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed explores our preoccupation with rewards and ...
03.01.2023 41. A Small Bowl of Rocket Lydia Harris has always struggled with food. For as long as she can remember, she has avoided fruit and vegetables - their texture simply disgusts her. But one day, that began to change, with a small bowl of rocket leaves. ...
02.22.2023 40. The Embodiment of Music A musician is halfway through a public performance when they realise they might not make it to the end. Their body is fighting them, they’re in extreme pain. But stopping is not an option so they push on. No one ...
02.15.2023 39. Please, I beg you. When Ben Taylor receives a Facebook message from a stranger in Liberia, asking in badly spelled English for financial or business assistance, he quickly assumes it’s a scam. But instead of just ignoring the message, he decides to find out ...
02.08.2023 38. Past Your Peak John Nunn learnt to play chess aged four. Since before he can remember, he’s had an exceptional talent for maths. In 1970, aged just 15, he started a degree in mathematics at the University of Oxford. In this episode of ...
02.01.2023 Season Six – Coming soon… Matthew Syed introduces season six, which explores stories about letting your guard down and making a leap of trust, reaching the peaks of our powers, and finding what truly motivates us to do good things.
12.07.2022 37. My Last 5p 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 ...
11.30.2022 36. All in a Name 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, ...
11.23.2022 35. The Riddle 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 ...
11.16.2022 34. It Takes a Village 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, ...
11.09.2022 33. Doc and Jim: A Beautiful Partnership 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 ...
11.02.2022 32. The Social Contagion 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 ...
10.26.2022 Sideways Season Five – Coming soon… Matthew Syed introduces season five, which looks at being less cynical, family and legacy.
08.24.2022 31. To Absent Friends 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 ...
08.17.2022 30. The Woman in the Portrait 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 ...
08.10.2022 29. Fooling the Opposition 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 ...
08.03.2022 28. Exiting the Bunker 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 ...
07.27.2022 27. A Blip on the Radar 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 ...
07.20.2022 26. War Games in the Pink Tower 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, ...
07.13.2022 25. A Nuclear Awakening 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 ...
07.06.2022 The Nuclear Reckoning 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 ...
12.22.2021 24. Sweet Harmony 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 ...
12.15.2021 23. Oostvaardersplassen: A Wild Idea 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 - ...
12.08.2021 22. Inspiring Bill Strickland 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 ...
12.01.2021 21. The Woman Who Brought Down the Mob 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 ...
11.25.2021 20. An appointment with Dr Leech 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 ...
11.17.2021 19. Is This What Success Looks Like? 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, ...
11.10.2021 18. Tongue-Tied 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, ...
11.03.2021 17. The Endurance of Arlene Blum 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 ...
10.27.2021 Series 3 Coming Soon Matthew Syed introduces the new series, which focuses on endurance, courage & resilience.
08.11.2021 16. Big Head 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 ...
08.04.2021 15. Best Feet Forward When the Danish men’s football team are called up to replace Yugoslavia in the 1992 European Championships, just 10 days before the start of the tournament, nobody fancied their chances, least of all the players themselves. In this episode of ...
07.28.2021 14. Let's All Be Batman When Amrou Al-Kadhi steps into a pair of heels and takes the stage, they step into another world, another persona where they can be whatever they want. In this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed asks whether creating an alter ego ...
07.21.2021 13. A Question Of Justice When Ray and Vi Donovan left court after the sentencing of three boys who murdered their 18-year-old son, Christopher, they said they had justice for Chris, but not the truth. They still didn’t know why Christopher was murdered on a ...
07.14.2021 12. Brighter than Bagpuss Boston, Massachusetts. 1970. A group of mothers and young children assembles outside the offices of the local TV station. It’s the first phase of a fight to improve kids’ TV that would go all the way to the United States ...
07.07.2021 11. Too Big to Succeed When a major earthquake hits California, it has to rebuild - but at what cost? A sunny afternoon in October, 1989. In San Francisco's Candlestick Park stadium, a pair of local sporting rivals are about to go head to head ...
06.30.2021 10. Under the Influence It's 1990 and Birmingham metal band Judas Priest are on trial in court in Reno, Nevada. The band are accused of influencing the suicide and suicide attempt of two of their young fans by placing subliminal messages in their track ...
06.23.2021 9. Originality Armageddon Bonfire night, November 5th 2015, 9.30pm. An agent fires off an email. An author is accused of plagiarism. His new book lies ready to be pulped. In the first of a new series of Sideways, Matthew Syed asks why we’re ...
06.21.2021 Introducing the new series Matthew Syed returns with the new series of Sideways, all about the ideas that shape our lives, with stories of seeing the world differently.
03.31.2021 8. Mental Athletics American science journalist Joshua Foer was a perfectly normal guy with a perfectly normal memory. Then he entered the USA National Memory Championships - and ended up giving the country’s brain power prodigies a run for their money. How did ...
03.24.2021 7. Top of the Pops You might not have heard of Max Martin, but you've definitely heard the songs he's written. You probably know the words whether you like the songs or not. Martin has written many of the world's biggest pop hits. He has ...

Older episodes

Sideways

What's Sideways about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Sideways episodes:

50. Take the First Step

49. Inside Marjorie's Parlour

48. Love Thy Villain

47. China's Ping Pong Power: Episode 3

46. China's Ping Pong Power: Episode 2

45. China's Ping Pong Power: Episode 1

Introducing - China's Ping Pong Power

44. Matthew’s been telling tales

43. Do I really sound like that?

42. The Big Reward

41. A Small Bowl of Rocket

40. The Embodiment of Music

39. Please, I beg you.

38. Past Your Peak

Season Six – Coming soon…

37. My Last 5p

36. All in a Name

35. The Riddle

34. It Takes a Village

33. Doc and Jim: A Beautiful Partnership

32. The Social Contagion

Sideways Season Five – Coming soon…

31. To Absent Friends

30. The Woman in the Portrait

29. Fooling the Opposition

28. Exiting the Bunker

27. A Blip on the Radar

26. War Games in the Pink Tower

25. A Nuclear Awakening

The Nuclear Reckoning

24. Sweet Harmony

23. Oostvaardersplassen: A Wild Idea

22. Inspiring Bill Strickland

21. The Woman Who Brought Down the Mob

20. An appointment with Dr Leech

19. Is This What Success Looks Like?

18. Tongue-Tied

17. The Endurance of Arlene Blum

Series 3 Coming Soon

16. Big Head

15. Best Feet Forward

14. Let's All Be Batman

13. A Question Of Justice

12. Brighter than Bagpuss

11. Too Big to Succeed

10. Under the Influence

9. Originality Armageddon

Introducing the new series

8. Mental Athletics

7. Top of the Pops