The Documentary Podcast

One question – Where are you going? – reveals hidden truths about the lives of strangers around the world. In this new series, with Brexit fast approaching, Catherine Carr talks to people on the move in Cardiff. Are the people she meets downcast, delighted, or disinterested? At a time of political and social upheaval, we find out what is really on their minds

A couple of years ago a cute little robot was sent out to hitchhike, to prove how well humans and robots could get on. It was an exercise in trust, and it went very wrong. Hitchbot was found decapitated, slumped next to some bins in Philadelphia. The robot’s head has never been found. Neither has the “killer”. We explore robot torture, and whether there is an ethical issue with harming a machine, other than damage to property.

When a light aircraft carrying two families from local Indian tribes disappeared over the Amazon recently, relatives scoured the rainforest for weeks, until hunger and illness forced them to give up. Why did the Brazilian authorities ignore appeals for an official, properly-resourced ground search? And why was there no flight plan to indicate where the plane might have gone? Tim Whewell reports on the dangers of flying in the world’s greatest remaining wilderness - where most flights are clandestine – and the fears of indigenous communities that the government is increasingly indifferent to their needs.

(Image: Before the tragedy - Jeziel Barbosa de Moura, pilot of the vanished plane, minutes before he took off on the doomed flight. Credit: Family archive)

Neil MacGregor visits different countries to talk to leading political, business and cultural figures to find out how they, as individuals and as members of their broader communities, see Britain. In Canada, Neil hears from French-Canadian film director, Denys Arcand; writer and Booker Prize nominee, Madeleine Thien; and Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland.

Cardiff in early February is freezing cold but the people have a warm welcome. Catherine Carr meets strangers in the city of Cardiff to find out what people here feeling in the weeks before Brexit. What’s on their minds? At a time of such unprecedented political flux, the simple device of her one question - where are you going? - will work to uncover some of that in people's lives.

In Nairobi’s slums, more than 90% of residents rent a shack from a slum landlord. These so-called slumlords have a less than shining reputation in the popular media, for exploiting the lives of the some of the poorest people in Kenya. Who are the faceless figures who own hundreds of shacks and make massive tax-free profits? Who is bulldozing whole areas of Kibera and leaving hundreds homeless? BBC reporter Anne Soy investigates.

How did a priest of the Church of Denmark manage to sexually abuse children for a decade without being detected? Gry Hoffmann investigates the case of Dan Peschack, who is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for the abuse of eight children.

Through interviews first recorded for Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s P1 documentary, she discovers “The Seducer” - a man who used his charisma and the power of his position in the Evangelical Lutheran state church to abuse children in the village of Tømmerup near Kalundborg on the west coast of Denmark. When Peschack was first arrested in 2016, many of the locals didn’t want to believe it, while others had been carrying a terrible secret for years.

In graphic accounts, which some listeners may find upsetting, victims describe their experience of Peschack’s abuse. One speaks of his shock at discovering the extent of the assaults and of his anger at the betrayal by a man who he thought was his friend. Parents who were suspicious regret their failure to act, while others realise they were duped into trusting their children to a paedophile.

Peschack’s appeal against his sentence has been rejected and he’s been banned from working as a priest, but have lessons been learned by the church authorities, whose priest inflicted on his victims such devastating harm?

Reporter: Gry Hoffmann

(Image: Tommerup town name road-sign with church in background. Credit: Gry Hoffmann)

Neil MacGregor visits different countries to talk to leading political, business and cultural figures to find out how they, as individuals and as members of their broader communities, see Britain. Neil visits Nigeria to meet Nobel Laureate for Literature, Wole Soyinka; Yeni Kuti, dancer, singer and eldest child of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti; and Muhammadu Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano.

With Brexit fast approaching, Catherine Carr talks to people on the move in Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast and London. Are the people she meets downcast, delighted, or disinterested? At a time of political and social upheaval, we find out what is really on their minds. In Glasgow, the first programme in the series, we find a city with a festive hangover, still counting the cost of Christmas and facing a cold January.

In the wake of independence an explosive music scene gripped the southern African country of Zambia. Mixing western rock 'n' roll with traditional sounds, enterprising young musicians kick-started a raucous movement that came to be known as Zamrock. Leading this charge was the charismatic frontman Emmanuel 'Jagari' Chanda with his band W.I.T.C.H. Join Jagari as he takes to the streets of Lusaka to tell his remarkable story as Zambia’s first ever rock star, why he is one of the last standing and why, in his advancing years, he is happy to give Mick Jagger a run for his money.