The Documentary Podcast

As the knockout stage of the men’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the USA draws closer, so too does the dreaded penalty shootout. Why do penalties bring so much drama and anxiety to both players and fans when they are used to decide tied games in knockout football? Former South African captain Amanda Dlamini looks back at the history of the shootout with penalty expert and author Ben Lyttleton. South African internationals Nomathemba Ntsibande and Gabriela Moodaly‑Salgado take us through their penalty routines, while West Ham United Women’s sport psychologist Dr Adrienn Szabadics explains the psychology behind the penalty shootout. We hear from 1999 Women’s World Cup winner Brandi Chastain about her winning penalty at that tournament. The coach of Amanda’s former club JVW, in Johannesburg, Alexia Cassar, tells us about the role coaches play in preparing for shootouts. Finally, commentator Andrés Cantor reminisces about the 2022 World Cup final, while South Africa goalkeeper and captain Ronwen Williams, who is playing in this year’s World Cup, gives us an insight into how he once saved four out of five penalties in a single shootout.

It is 10 years since the UK voted to leave the European Union in the Brexit referendum. In this two-part series, Alex Forsyth, a BBC correspondent who’s covered Brexit from both Brussels and Westminster, looks at what impact the decision to leave the EU has had on various aspects of public and political life, both within Britain and beyond.In the first episode, Alex and guests discuss Brexit's effect on the UK economy, trade, and immigration, and how the referendum result impacted Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Did Brexit encourage the trade boom that the Leave campaign promised? Was the UK able to ‘take back control’ of its borders? And has Brexit poured fuel on the fire of the independence movements in the devolved nations?

This unique BBC radio programme is aimed at just a few dozen listeners: The team of scientists and support staff isolated at British research stations in the Antarctic midwinter.Hosted by Cerys Matthews, the show features messages from family and friends at home as well as music requests from Antarctica. For decades it has been part of the traditional midwinter celebrations and, since 2020, it’s been enjoyed by listeners around the world. Midwinter celebrations at the British research stations include a feast, exchange of presents, watching the 1982 horror film The Thing (where an alien monster terrorises an Antarctic base) and listening - on short wave - to the BBC’s Midwinter Broadcast.A Boffin Media Production for BBC World Service

At the beginning of June a clean-up crew on Mount Everest were clearing abandoned tents and rubbish, when they saw a man in the distance, completely alone, sliding down the mountain towards base camp. The man was Hilary Dawa Sherpa. He had been missing for 6 days and his family, convinced that he had died, had already started doing last rites for him. Nearly every person who climbs Mount Everest depends on a member of the Sherpa community to guide them up the mountain, carry belongings and set up camps. So why was HIlary Dawa Sherpa left behind? Kamal Pariyar of BBC Nepali spoke to Hilary Dawa Sherpa about his miraculous survival. BBC World Service Global Environment correspondent Navin Singh Khadka is also from Nepal and has reported on many issues to do with tourism on Mount Everest. In May, in a town north-western Peru, a group of Catholic priests knelt and publicly asked forgiveness from descendants of the indigenous Tallàn community. The scene, captured on video, shows a group of priests in robes addressing the representatives of the community before stepping down to be among them and kneeling. Isabel Caro from BBC Mundo tells the story of the struggle behind this gesture. The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts. Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India. If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Laura Thomas and Caroline Ferguson (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)

Since the outbreak of war involving Iran, Israel and the U.S. in late February 2026, Iranians have been living through months of fear, instability and profound uncertainty. A fragile truce came into effect on April 8, but by May 2026 ceasefire efforts were still under strain, with negotiations continuing and tensions in and around the region far from settled.In this edition of Heart and Soul, Emily Wither speaks to Iranians inside the country about how war, repression and disillusionment have reshaped their relationship with religion. For some, years of state control in the name of Islam — now intensified by the trauma of recent conflict — have deepened the divide between official religion and personal faith.Some still pray to God, but in intimate, private ways far removed from state doctrine. Others have drifted away from formal religious belief altogether, finding comfort instead in Persian poetry, music, mysticism and ancient cultural texts such as the Shahnameh. Through anonymous voices from inside Iran, the programme explores a quiet but profound spiritual shift: away from imposed religion, and toward more personal and self-fashioned ways of making meaning.

The documentary tells the story of scientific hubris through the extraordinary life of one chimp, Sheba. Now 44, she lives in sanctuary at Chimp Haven in Louisiana. Born in a cage, raised in a zoo, she spent twenty-four years in a research laboratory. Her life mirrors our evolving relationship with the animal world. Sheba is the daughter of Nim, a famous chimp who learned sign language. Like her father, she demonstrated remarkable intelligence, learning to add, subtract, and paint. Her story traces back to a bold 1970s idea: if chimps are so genetically and behaviourally close to humans, could they help us learn about ourselves? Many scientists, like Bob Ingersoll, pursued that question through a series of behavioural and social experiments. Others pursued it through invasive biomedical research.But the deeper they went, the shakier the premise became. As Bob reflects, much of the research proved not only scientifically flawed, but ethically troubling, often meaningless and cruel. That realisation sparked a shift. By 2016, biomedical research on chimpanzees in the U.S. had come to an end. In the UK and European Union, biomedical research ended a few years earlier.Through Sheba’s journey, we hear about that turning point.Featuring interviews with those who knew and worked with her, the documentary also includes zoologist Charlotte Uhlenbroek, who, drawing on years of studying chimps in the wild, guides us inside the world of primate research. The documentary confronts a question that is still unresolved: we have the need to experiment, but do we have the right?*This episode was edited on 24 June 2026. We originally stated that Chimp Haven was established in 1973; in fact, it was established in 1995*

Describing the joy (and heartache) of football is the job of commentators at this summer's FIFA World Cup in America, Canada and Mexico. In the Studio hears how the loyalties of California's poet laureate Lee Herrick are divided between the USA and his birth country, South Korea, while UK poet Ian McMillan finds inspiration for a new poem in the lines on the pitch.

Ebola is a frightening and deadly disease, killing on average one half of people infected and spreading rapidly without containment measures. So how do BBC journalists report from the centre of an epidemic? BBC West Africa journalist Emery Makumeno has been reporting from Kinshasa in DR Congo on the Ebola outbreak; Musa Sangarie, Country Director for Sierra Leone for BBC Media Action, led public information campaigns in Sierra Leone in the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic; Camilla Mota, journalist with BBC News Brasil, has reported on the fall-out from the country’s Zika virus outbreak in 2015 and 2016; and Mattias Zibell Garcia, producer at BBC Mundo, reported on the recent Hantavirus outbreak in Ushuaia, Argentina. The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts. Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India. If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)