Sideways

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 about the person behind it.

In this episode, Matthew Syed explores what happens when you let your guard down and make a leap of trust.

With author and Oxford University trust fellow Rachel Botsman, philosopher Julian Baggini, Ben Taylor and Joel Mentee-Willie.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

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 Sideways, Matthew Syed ventures into the world of child prodigies. Often depicted as freakish talents with pushy parents, Matthew uncovers the falsehoods and fascinations associated with young brilliant minds.

Charting John Nunn’s career, from maths lecturer to chess grandmaster, Matthew explores how our performance peaks, plateaus and declines and whether age and innovation are really inextricably linked.

With Dr Ellen Winner, Professor of Psychology at Boston College and Dr Bruce Weinberg, Professor of Economics at Ohio State University.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

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.

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 would alter both their lives in profound ways.

In this episode, Matthew Syed explores how the effects of a seemingly small moment of generosity can ripple outwards, with significant consequences. He considers where this impulse to give to other people comes from and why we go out of our way to help others, sometimes at a cost to ourselves.

With Felix Warneken, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan; Dr Michael Rees, kidney transplant surgeon and founder of the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation; and psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

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 escalated, the language of sexual violence was used.

Sandra knew what she was experiencing was wrong, but she didn’t have the words to describe what she was going through, let alone try and seek justice.

In this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed delves into the history of the anti-sexual harassment movement in the US in the 1970s to understand how finding the right words can help us tackle big wrongs.

He’ll discover how culture, politics and the law intersect to bring about new ideas, and how these ideas filter down into our everyday understanding of the world.

With Sandra Bundy, philosopher Miranda Fricker, social historian Linda Hirshman, lawyer Arthur Chotin and anthropologist Alex Bentley.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

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 meet the problems of the future.

With Antti Ilvessuo, creator of the riddle, co-Founder and ex-creative director of RedLynx; Brad Kirby, Trials Evolution super fan and expert aka Professor FatShady; Dr Philip Cozzolino, University of Essex; and Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, Professor of Management and Organizations and Center of Leadership and Ethics Scholar at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

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 family but one full of love and care nonetheless. 

In this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed explores their story to think about how we might get more of the good stuff out of family. We hear from Al, and her daughter Shelley, about life in their collective house. Marriage and family historian Stephanie Coontz reveals some surprising facts about the history of the nuclear family while the writer Sophie Lewis pushes us to rethink the ways in which we care for one another.

With thanks to contributors Al Garthwaite, Shelley Wild, Sophie Lewis and Stephanie Coontz.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

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.

Dr William Key was a former enslaved man who became a wealthy entrepreneur before turning his hand to patiently training a sickly foal to do maths and spell. They took their act on the road to the delight of millions of Americans and the attention of the American humane movement.

Matthew Syed invites us to dive into this extraordinary story of America in a moment of new understanding, and asks us to consider the possibilities offered by our relationship to animals.

With Mim Eichler Rivas, Eric Collins, Dr Bill Samuels, Dr Elizabeth Ormerod

Presenter: Matthew Syed

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 people feeling dizzy and sick.

In this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed tells the story of a strange fainting outbreak at a school and delves into these types of events which affect dozens - sometimes hundreds - of people. What looks unexplained turns out to have a fascinating psychological explanation. But, as Matthew discovers, sometimes our desire to explain things can lead to us explaining them away.

With Professor Sir Simon Wessely, psychiatrist and epidemiologist at Kings College, London and Dr Johanna Braun, artist and researcher at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

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