Sideways
Channel Details
Sideways
Best-selling author Matthew Syed explores the ideas that shape our lives with stories of seeing the world differently.
Recent Episodes
107 episodes
78. Hide and Seek
In 2014, Lydia Laurenson moved to San Francisco. As she struggled to find her place and her people in a new city, one mysterious invitation changed ev...
77. Crazy Cat Lady
Anna Go-Go has always defied expectations - she was a drummer (still rare for a woman), then a comedian and now a mass Go-Go dance instructor - always...
76. When Time Slows Down
Movie stuntman Brian Hite often experiences a dramatic slowing down of time while performing complex stunts in a matter of seconds, like car hits - en...
75. Me, Myself and Mine
Few people you’ll come across on the street look like Ryan Emans. His body is heavily modified, from head to toe - including a tongue split that gives...
74. Inventing a Language
Identical twins Matthew and Michael Youlden invented their own private language as toddlers. They’ve gone on to become accomplished multi-linguists, b...
3. Peace Reimagined
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, one man declared the use of weapons to defend his nation as morally wrong. He faces y...
2. A Peace that Lasts
Uganda, in the mid-1990s - 35-year-old Betty Bigombe is sent by President Yoweri Museveni to the north of the country to open peace talks with rebel g...
1. Wired for War?
It’s December 2008. Wasim’s newborn daughter Yuna urgently needs care. He has no choice but to navigate the flames engulfing the streets of Gaza to fi...
Introducing – Chasing Peace
Is true peace actually possible?
As wars rage around the globe, peace can seem like a fleeting ideal, rather than something humanity can ever ac...
73. Reliving History
In a theatre in Buenos Aires, six veterans from opposite sides of the Falklands War united to re-enact their experiences of the conflict in front of h...
72. Limitless Love
After the break up of the Soviet Union in the 90s, the problem of street children in Ukraine began to grow. Pastor Gennadiy Mokhnenko started taking t...
71. Tempting Fate
Tempting fate is often seen as a fine line between courage and foolishness. It’s rooted in the belief that pushing certain boundaries or showing too m...
70. Digital Ghosts
Amy Kurzweil’s dad is a famous inventor, futurist and pioneer in the field of AI. In 2015, she discovers his aspiration to make an AI chatbot of her l...
69. Memento Mori
The passing of time brings inevitable change - corrosion, disintegration and, eventually, disappearance. While the certainty of this process may seem...
68. Bliss in Suffering
When David Wright went to Iraq as an 18-year-old soldier - he had no idea the battlefield would become a place where he’d enter deep states of bliss....
67. Reality Shifting
In 2020, a curious trend went viral on social media, especially among teenagers and young adults. As much of the world stayed at home to curb the spre...
Sideways: Series eleven - coming soon…
Sideways returns with seven new stories of seeing the world differently and the ideas that shape our lives. Stories about everything from the ethics o...
25 Years of the 21st Century: 5. The Age of Artificial Intelligence
Geoffrey Hinton's work laid the foundation for today's artificial intelligence systems. His research on neural networks has paved the way for current...
25 Years of the 21st Century: 4. The Age of Changing Families
As we swipe to find love and consult chatbot therapists, Matthew Syed asks how technology has altered the way we approach dating, friendship and commu...
25 Years of the 21st Century: 3. The Age of Outsourcing
Is this the age of outsourcing?
This is not a show about call centres in India. Rather, it's a look at a much deeper shift in who we are, how w...
25 Years of the 21st Century: 2. The Age of Mistrust
Have we lost faith in institutions, politicians - and even money?
Some people say there is an onslaught of misinformation and a battle for trut...
25 Years of the 21st Century: 1. The Age of Digital Warfare
In this series, we’re remembering some of the major events of this century and asking how they’re shaping us. This programme is all about war and conf...
5. The Future of Attention
Matthew Syed asks what it means to be distracted in a media world vying for our attention.
In this final episode, he considers where our media c...
4. Attention Shortfall?
Matthew Syed asks what it means to be distracted in a media world vying for our attention.
In this episode Matthew traces the inexorable rise of...
3. Medium and Metaphor
Matthew Syed asks what it means to be distracted in a media world vying for our attention.
In this episode, Matthew analyses the medium through...
2. Have We Always Been Distracted?
Matthew Syed asks what it means to be distracted in a media world vying for our attention.
In this episode, Matthew looks into history to uncove...
1. Postman’s Prophecy?
Matthew Syed asks what it means to be distracted in a media world vying for our attention.
In this first episode, he seeks answers in the work o...
66. One is a Whole
We all know the power of a great love story. In films, literature, television - a “happy ending” is shorthand for the main characters coupling up at t...
65. Divergent Histories
In the 1960s and 70s, Maisie Barrett and Noel Gordon were two black British children wrongly labelled as “educationally subnormal”. They were sent to...
64. The Masks We Wear
As a teenager, Raven Saunders dreamt of playing basketball, but their physique led them down a different path. Exceptional strength and size destined...
63. The Art of Unfinishing
Jen Simonic and Masey Kaplan have bonded over a mutual love for knitting for decades.
In 2022, the pair of avid knitters decided to search for s...
A New Frontier: 4. With the Gods
When astronauts journeyed to the moon in the early 1970s, few were paying attention to the psychological impact of the experience. Yet many among thos...
A New Frontier: 3. Life on Mars
Matthew Syed continues his four-part mini-series from Sideways examining the ethics of space exploration in a rapidly expanding era of travel and tran...
A New Frontier: 2. For All Humankind?
Matthew Syed continues his four-part mini series exploring the ethics of space exploration, by returning to the origins of the space race, which saw A...
A New Frontier: 1. A Message to Ourselves
In this special series from Sideways, called A New Frontier, Matthew Syed explores the most out of this world ethical questions posed by the evolution...
Introducing – A New Frontier
Travel into the cosmos for a four-part series about the ethics of space exploration. Matthew Syed invites you to enter the vast wilderness of the gala...
62. Lost and Found
In 1984, on the eve of the Winter Olympics, Joe Boylan gets lost in a blizzard on an Austrian mountainside. Joe will have to fight with everything he...
61. Brain Strain
In 1972, at the liberal Vassar College in New York, 18-year-old Rick Shenkman stood out for his unwavering support of Richard Nixon, especially as the...
60. For the love of maths
As a child, Kate Ertmann starred in commercials, in soap operas and on Broadway. But acting wasn’t her first love - mathematics was. She considered it...
59. What's Your Name?
What's your name? You might think you know, but in this episode of Sideways, Matthew Syed discovers the answer could be more complicated than you firs...