The Documentary Podcast

Brooklyn-based architectural practice SO|IL's have garnered a reputation for crafting exquisite arts spaces. They are joined by musician Ben Lovett, one of the founding members of folk rock outfit, Mumford & Sons. When he is not on stage, he puts his energy into reinvigorating tired music venues with his company TVG. Launching in 2016, TVG is now a leader in this field, helping to ensure the survival of spectacular independent venues which would otherwise be vulnerable to closure. In the Studio gets behind-the-scenes and under the floorboards with the SO - IL experts as they describe how their philosophy and processes enrich and shape their buildings.

Millions of people around the world have been living under heat advisories due to record hot temperatures. The exceptional heat is being felt across Europe, the US, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Host James Reynolds hears from three farmers in South Africa, Nigeria and the UK about how they are having to adapt their work and methods due to the extreme conditions. We hear from three doctors in India, France and Australia about the warning signs of heatstroke and the cases they are having to treat due to exposure to the sun.

On a busy street in Los Angeles a group of people in yellow vests are holding a ladder against a lamppost. Up the ladder, 34-year-old Evan Clark is ripping down a sign that is nailed to the post. It reads “Jesus: The way, the truth, the life”. These are members of the Atheist Street Pirates, local activists who track and remove religious signs affixed to public property. They, along with other volunteers, interfaith leaders and progressive Christian pastors who have joined the pirates to remove signs, as they believe they interfere with creating a pluralistic society. Nastaran Tavakoli-Far travels to Los Angeles and joins the Atheist Street Pirates out on a hunt for religious signs,

Tunisia’s democracy is being dismantled by a president who claims he’s saving it from anarchy. Parliament has been dissolved, scores of judges sacked and opponents jailed. Once Tunisia - the north African country of just 12 million people squeezed between it’s much bigger neighbours Libya and Algeria - was a beacon of democracy. It was the first Arab country to overthrow it’s dictator Ben Ali in 2011 during what became known as the Arab Spring. Now a new authoritarian leader, Kais Saied, dominates the country. Tunisia faces numerous problems, from soaring prices and shortages of some basic foods - to thousands of migrants – many Tunisians - trying to flee across the Mediterranean to Europe.

Mike Thomson meets the sister of an activist who was imprisoned, an aspiring kickboxer who wants to settle abroad, a sub-Saharan migrant who’s lost his job and his home and a rapper, whose music helped inspire that 2011 revolution. What future faces Tunisia – democracy or dictatorship?

Presenter: Mike Thomson

(Image: Tunisians with Tunisian flags protesting against the constitutional referendum. Credit: Mohamed Messara/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

For centuries, Kew Gardens was the flash point for a lesser known British imperial project – the collection of plants from colonised nations for political and commercial gain. Author and journalist Rosie Kinchen finds out about the work Kew is doing today to examine this, and looks into how the institution is supporting botanical science and conservation around the globe. Rosie speaks to curatorial and scientific staff at Kew, as well as taking a wider view on the role of plants in colonial history.

Acclaimed and award-winning Shakespearean, Gregory Doran, has directed every play in Shakespeare’s First Folio except Cymbeline. For him it’s one of Shakespeare’s most complex creations and he will be directing it for the first time as his swansong, as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s artistic director emeritus. From the start of the production’s rehearsal period until its first performance, we follow Gregory and his team as they get to grips with a play criticised and celebrated for its genre-busting, location-hopping, multiple plotlines, topped by the appearance of the god Jupiter descending from the heavens on an eagle.

The Euros 2022 saw the Lionesses finally ‘bring it home’ - the excitement and crowd numbers showed there was a huge demand for women’s football. Ahead of the Women’s 2023 World Cup this documentary explores whether opportunities for women have changed. What is the state of play for women’s football around the globe?

Prices almost everywhere are going up, which means most of us have less money to spend. At the heart of it is inflation, the rate at which prices are rising. It means paying higher costs for everything, from food to transport, clothes to power, and less on life’s luxuries.

Host James Reynolds has been bringing people around the world together to share their experiences of inflation. Three people living in cities in Asia, Africa and Europe describe their struggles to buy food and pay the rent.

We also speak to business owners, in Argentina, Senegal and Zimbabwe, including two who run restaurants. They give us an insight into how they stay solvent and share some advice on spending. They say that even when times are tough, people still want to go out to socialise with friends and family.

And two students, in Poland and Lebanon, tell us know they have taken on multiple jobs to make ends meet.

As a shaman, Sipa Melo is the beating heart of tribal faith and culture in a remote corner of north-east India, tucked in the shadow of the Himalayan Mountains. He's a healer, a story-teller and a protector of the natural world. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent joins Sipa for a week of ritual, performing ceremonies to mark deaths and births and maintaining taboos that help preserve this mountainous region's indigenous culture and its rich wildlife. She hears about his determined efforts to encourage a new generation of trainee shamans and his worries about the changing values of the region as roads and hydro-electric dams end its isolation from the booming cities to the south.

Kaaps is a language widely spoken in the bleak townships of Cape Town, South Africa. It’s often denigrated as a lesser form of Afrikaans – the language that was used as a tool of white supremacy during the apartheid era. Spoken predominately by working class people on the Cape Flats, Kaaps is associated with negative stereotypes – its speakers denigrated as uneducated, "ghetto" layabouts involved in gang culture.

But a new, burgeoning movement led by hip-hop artists, academics, writers and film makers is actively changing that perception. They want to reclaim Afrikaaps to restore the linguistic, cultural and racial dignity of a formerly disenfranchised people. The writer Lindsay Johns travels to Cape Town to meet the activists determined to assert the worth and pride of the people who speak Afrikaaps.

Presenter: Lindsay Johns

(Image: Children in Lavender Hill, a township on the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa. Credit: Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)