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The Documentary

Investigating global developments, issues and affairs.

World Service,1985 episodes

Episodes

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Looking for No Man's Land
Is there anywhere left on Earth that is unaffected by humans?
10 Jan 2026,54 mins
Looking For No Man's Land
Is there anywhere left on Earth that is unaffected by humans?
10 Jan 2026,49 mins
Returned to sender
The man who hunts for messages in bottles and the people who sent them
08 Jan 2026,26 mins
An armada for asteroid Apophis?
Friday, April 13th 2029 – mark it in your calendar...an asteroid is coming
01 Jan 2026,26 mins
Kibera ballerinas
Aspiring dancers in Kibera, Kenya, prepare for their biggest show yet
01 Jan 2026,26 mins
United in space: How we built the ISS
How nations collaborated to create the International Space Station
20 Dec 2025,49 mins
Elephant conservation in Botswana
Botswana has more elephants than any other country but conservation is complex
18 Dec 2025,26 mins
Steel from shipwrecks
Materials scientist Anna Ploszajski investigates the scavenging of pre-atomic steel
11 Dec 2025,26 mins
Rocks To Riches
We explore the global trade in meteorites
04 Dec 2025,26 mins
Young and stateless
The stories of young stateless individuals around the world
29 Nov 2025,49 mins
Why there is hope for Haiti
Nick Miles asks a simple question - why is there still hope for Haiti?
29 Nov 2025,26 mins
New Elements
What does it take to make something which has never existed on Earth before?
27 Nov 2025,26 mins
The Chinese Cryptoqueen
How Qian Zhimin ended up at the heart of the UK’s biggest cryptocurrency seizure
27 Nov 2025,26 mins
‘No justice, just kills’
Families of Iraqis killed by US marines in Haditha learn why the killers walked free
22 Nov 2025,49 mins
China’s global spending spree
Celia Hatton reveals the breathtaking scale of China’s state-backed overseas spending
20 Nov 2025,26 mins
The great hunger: Stalin's famine in Kazakhstan
The Kazakhs who came through one of the worst man-made famines the world has seen
15 Nov 2025,49 mins,
Striking gas in Bolivia
A huge gas find reignites old debates over Bolivia’s energy and environmental future
13 Nov 2025,26 mins
In the shadow of the railway
Will the US-led Lobito Corridor project deliver a brighter future for Angola?
06 Nov 2025,26 mins
The last cowboys
A long-haul view of the life of modern truckers in Europe
30 Oct 2025,26 mins
G-land: Surf and spirits
G-land where spiritual beliefs protect waves and jungle of myth and legend
23 Oct 2025,26 mins
Brazil's Miracle: An indigenous disaster
Do Indigenous people in Brazil still suffer the impacts of the military dictatorship?
18 Oct 2025,49 mins
Fighting on two fronts
Meet the Ukrainian polar scientists who lead extraordinary dual lives
16 Oct 2025,26 mins
Global dancefloor: Saigon
What does Vietnamese alternative culture looks and sounds like today?
09 Oct 2025,26 mins
Powering Nigeria
Can Nigeria solve its electricity crisis and power a more reliable future?
02 Oct 2025,26 mins
Gaza Conflict: Two years on
A special episode to reflect on the war in Gaza and the future of the Middle East
30 Sep 2025,26 mins
A people’s history of Gaza
An oral history of Gaza
27 Sep 2025,49 mins
Kharkiv: Love in a War Zone
Why one woman chose to live under fire in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv for love.
25 Sep 2025,26 mins
Digital Dolittles: Talking to the animals?
Could new technologies help us to communicate with some animals?
20 Sep 2025,49 mins
The second map: The battered suitcase
Key moments in the attack on Pearl Harbour and atomic bombing of Japan in World War Two
18 Sep 2025,26 mins
The social lives of bacteria
The microscopic dramas of bacterial loners, crowd-lovers, backstabbers and do-gooders
18 Sep 2025,26 mins