Lives Less Ordinary

Jo Fidgen, Asya Fouks

Booking Overview

This BBC human-interest interview series focuses on extraordinary true stories, with external guests sharing dramatic first-person experiences of love, loss, survival, adversity, and transformation. PR agencies could credibly pitch clients with compelling lived experiences—such as survivors, couples or families with unusual journeys, and journalists or filmmakers with remarkable personal stories—but booking is likely medium difficulty because the show is editorially selective and requires a strong narrative rather than conventional expertise or celebrity.

Metrics

Episodes: 240

Frequency: Weekly

Rating: 4.6/5.0

Estimated listeners: 10k-100k

Gender skew: Neutral

Location: USA

Contact Information

Publicly listed emails

podcast.support@bbc.co.uk

Looking for the right person? Join Podseeker to find direct host and producer contacts and manage your podcast outreach.

Host

Jo Fidgen - BBC presenter and journalist known for presenting human-interest stories.

Asya Fouks - BBC World Service presenter focused on human-interest storytelling.

Booking Intelligence

Booking Requirements

medium

Typical Credentials:

Guests with extraordinary firsthand experiences and a highly compelling personal narrative. Professional credentials are secondary to authenticity, emotional depth, unusual circumstances, and the ability to discuss the story in detail.

Required Achievements:

Surviving or overcoming extreme adversity, Living through an unusual relationship or family journey, Working in dangerous or exceptional circumstances, Creating documentaries or other work connected to a remarkable personal experience

Recent Guest Discussions

Kris Armstrong - Divorce, Caregiving, Legal Guardianship, Traumatic Brain Injury, And Building A Blended Family.

Mark Bethel - Young Love, Prejudice, Separation, Reconciliation, And Reunion.

Penny Umbers - Lost Love, Prejudice, Grief, Reconciliation, And Second Chances.

Abd Al-Kader Habak - War-zone Filming, Displacement, Personal Risk, Cross-border Love, And Documentary Production.

Janay Boulos - Journalism In Wartime, Long-distance Relationships, Displacement, Marriage, And Documentary Filmmaking.

Recent Topics

Human Interest, Relationships, Resilience, Survival, Adversity

Episodes

Here's the recent few episodes on

Lives Less Ordinary

America’s most wanted: my family on the run, part 1

September 14, 2026

In some ways Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s childhood was normal; his parents went to work and played with him in the park. Though in other ways it was anything but: moving between safe houses, fleeing in the night as the FBI moved in. His parents were the leaders of a violent revolutionary group called the Weathermen and then the Weather Underground, which the US government classed as a domestic terror group. They opposed the Vietnam war and racism in American society. They drew attention to their caus...

Love Stories: Told by you

September 07, 2026

Now it’s your turn to share. A bonus episode to end our Love Stories series where you tell the world how your true love grew. Fiona Smiley Wright got in touch about an extraordinary romance that was hiding right under her nose for most of her life, growing up in Northern Ireland. It wasn’t until her parents passed away that Fiona and her three brothers discovered years of love letters between them, while separated by war. Fiona tells Asya the tale of a silver cigarette box that her mother Eli...

Love Stories: The matchmaker

August 31, 2026

At 83, Gina Ceccarelli thought the romantic chapter of her life was over. Then she met Dwight Moberg, a 91-year-old widower from California. There was just one complication, Gina speaks Italian and Dwight speaks English, so most of their conversations happen through hand gestures and a translation app.The person who brought them together is Menbere "Menbe" Akiklu. Forty years earlier, Menbe was a young Ethiopian mother living in a shelter in Rome, trying to rebuild her life after escaping an ...

Publicly listed emails

podcast.support@bbc.co.uk

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