The Documentary Podcast

Lusaka, capital of Zambia, has a population of 2.5 million people, and one central fire station to serve them. The city of Paris – of a similar size – has over 80. Nick Miles explores how Zambia’s firefighters try and make that work, in this city of ignored safety regulations and combustible shanty homes.

Following them on their daily missions, from house fires in the compounds to industrial accidents in the factories, he finds a fire service capable of some real heroics. Yet it is also burdened with a terrible, city-wide reputation – responsible for all of Lusaka, they simply cannot move fast enough.

And while Lusaka’s firefighters are used to the abuse they receive on arrival – from insults to thrown stones – they now find themselves on the frontline of a national political scandal too. For Zambians are protesting on the streets, demanding an explanation for the government’s purchase of 42 new fire trucks - for $42 million dollars.

Photo: Firefighters put out flames, Credit: Lusaka Fire Station

On the 50th anniversary of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, presenter Michael Goldfarb tells the story of how they came to be murdered. He speaks with their children and close associates about how the pair’s lives and deaths affected their own pathway. And he looks at how their words and deeds continue to shape America.

(Photo: Clergyman and civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King (1929-1968). Credit:Keystone/Getty Images)

In a rundown neighbourhood in Athens there is a hotel with 4,000 people on its waiting list for rooms. But the roof leaks and the lifts are permanently out of action. None of the guests pay a penny, but everyone's supposed to help with the cooking and cleaning.

Producer: Chloe Hadjimatheou.

Homer’s epic spoken poem The Odyssey was composed 3000 years ago. It is a tale of Odysseus's ten year long journey home after the battle of Troy with its countless trials and adventures along the way. And alongside the story of Odysseus we hear from contemporary refugees, currently caught in limbo, living in camps in modern day Greece, who speak of their own experiences and challenges as they leave one home and hope to find another.

Syrian police arrest a number of dead people in a cemetery. Laugh out loud, sharp intake of breath, or both? This is the sort of uncomfortable material produced by young Arab satirists. Since the Arab Spring, hopes for change have been dashed across much of the Arab world, but the revolts have unleashed online satire targeting social injustice, corruption and political leaders.

In this programme, journalist Magdi Abdelhadi – himself from Egypt – takes a closer look at satire in the Arab World. Among its rising stars are Andeel, a young Egyptian satirist angrily taking aim at the patriarchal order; the TV show Scenario, made by Syrians in Turkey, which lampoons the Assad regime, with President Assad himself often portrayed as a village fool; and Al Hudood, a satirical news website produced from London and Jordan, responsible for that cemetery sketch. We hear samples of these young satirists’ work, but also discover where the boundaries lie: when asked whether they can ridicule the Jordanian royal family, there’s a lot of squirming among Al Hudood’s journalists…

Arabic satire has a long tradition, rooted amongst other things in poetry using ordinary ‘street Arabic’ to lampoon public figures. Together with expert Clive Holes from Oxford University, Magdi explores some of those traditions and hears some of the most famous sketches of the genre. And he meets one of the biggest names in Arab satire, Karl Sharro from Lebanon, who works in English – taking the genre to the world stage.

Image: A man's face behind a printed smile, Credit: Getty Images

Why is troubled Catalonia now opening up civil war mass graves?

Spain has the second largest amount of mass graves in the world after Cambodia. Over 100,000 people disappeared during the 1930s civil war and the ensuing Franco dictatorship. Decades later, the vast majority are still unaccounted for.

Forgetting Spain's painful past and the disappeared is what allowed democracy and peace to flourish, the argument has long gone.

But many have not forgotten - including in the region of Catalonia, where bitter memories of Franco’s rule are just beneath the surface. Before Madrid imposed direct rule last October, the pro-independence Catalan government began an unprecedented plan to excavate civil war mass graves and collect DNA from families looking for their lost relatives.

Estelle Doyle travels to the politically troubled region and finds out how, despite direct rule, those seeking answers are more determined than ever to recover the past and to confront Spain's painful history. Others worry that their actions will only but reopen old wounds and further divide the country.

Presenter: Estelle Doyle

Photo credit: BBC John Murphy - 'Exhuming a mass grave in El Soleras, Catalonia, Spain'

Freezing one's eggs seems the ultimate in planning a family and a career. It is now being offered as a benefit by a growing number of companies including Apple and Facebook, and some UK tech companies are discussing the option. So is this empowering or sinister? Is egg freezing a solution to what is often a social problem? And what do we really know about success rates? This is a complex story – morally and medically.

Fi Glover speaks to women who have frozen their eggs - both privately and through a company scheme. She follows the experience of Brigitte Adams, a marketing executive who froze her eggs at 39 and is about to have one of them fertilized and implanted at 45. Brigitte explains how the marketing of egg freezing took the fear out of it, but she has words of warning for women considering this route. We also hear from a former Apple employee who froze her eggs via the company's benefit scheme.

Professor Geeta Nargund is an expert in reproductive medicine and the director of Europe’s largest private fertility clinic. She explains why she views egg freezing as the second wave of emancipation for women after the contraceptive pill. Critics suggest though that employer-funded egg freezing sends a message that the corporate preference is for women to delay childbearing. Fi also speaks to obstetrician Susan Bewley who believes encouraging women to freeze their eggs is making risky and unreliable options seem desirable and routine.

Fi Glover is personally very familiar with the issues in this documentary. She considered freezing her own eggs and when she was living in the US almost a decade ago when it was still a niche technology.

Image: Human egg cell, Credit: Getty Images

The retelling of an ancient story from the African Islands of Zanzibar. It is a tale packed with intrigue and death defying ingenuity in which a young wife has to use her determination and magical powers to save her own life and persuade her husband of the error of his ways.

Karl Sharro experiences the Middle East from the unique perspective of a Lebanese ski resort, an eye in the hurricane of the surrounding conflicts. Here, different nationalities and religions escape the politics and differences to enjoy a shared passion – winter sports – in mountainous regions that are laden with sacred symbolism for the Lebanese.

The whole world saw the picture of Father Edward Daly waving a bloodied handkerchief as he escorted a dying teenager out of the line of fire on Bloody Sunday; many books have been written about the role of Catholic priests and Protestant clergy during 30 years of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. But the stories of Catholic Sisters working in schools or living on the Peace Line in Belfast, have not been heard. These are stories of trauma, anger and shaken faith but tales too of laughter, hope and reconciliation.