Things Unseen

The reality TV star and Luton Town FC club doctor opens up about his dyslexia, his medical career and his Christian faith.

Fr Christopher Jamison and Bonnie Lander Johnson find seasonal hope in nature and astronomy, stories and art.

Remona Aly and three guests discuss spiritual maturity in Islam.

The Japanese art form that’s become a symbol of how brokenness can ultimately enhance the human spirit.

Why people from other faiths sing in church choirs – especially at Christmas.

How a man with profound mental health issues made a woman question her Christian certainties.

Why is the Russian Orthodox Church supporting Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? And are the Russian President’s alleged religious motives genuine? Lucy Ash and guests discuss.

Christ’s disciples looked after his body with great care after he was taken down from the cross. So why do we shrink from dead bodies today?

Remona Aly explores how the Islamic holy month can be made more environmentally friendly and less wasteful.

Mark Dowd examines a key question of faith: how can a loving God allow good people to suffer?

What would it have been like for a young first-time mother to give birth far from home? For this Christmas edition of Things Unseen, Rae Duke talks to two modern-day midwives, Ruth and Suyai, to hear their thoughts on what it might have been like for a young woman like Mary to give birth without pain relief, monitors, birthing pools or at least an antiseptic environment. Stand by for some hair-raising stories!

Members of China’s Muslim Uyghur minority reflect on what it is like to mark the Islamic holy month in exile

Moving between the present day and the 1st century, Patient 13 fills in the gaps of the Gospels in an intriguing look at the events of Holy Week, when Jesus, hailed as the ‘Christ’, was cheered into Jerusalem, executed by the Romans, and then apparently came back to life.

Nearly one in five women in the UK now reach their 40s without having children. Among them was the writer and teacher Blanche Girouard, and she desperately wanted a baby. So she decided to freeze her eggs and find an anonymous donor. The journey was fraught, but then a Christmas miracle occurred.

Sarah Niyazi was pleased to get her husband, Arif, home from hospital in February 2020 following treatment for a severe autoimmune condition. Within days they were both ill. Struggling to breathe, Arif went back into hospital, one of the earliest UK cases of Covid-19.

The sacred Islamic month of fasting, spiritual devotion and charity looks very different this year. For the very first time, many of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims are spending a month normally marked by communal activities in lockdown because of Covid-19.

In the midst of a ferocious thunderstorm, Joe and Nick, two no-nonsense Irishmen, become trapped in a cave while burying a body for reasons unknown... An Easter drama.

Two bereaved mothers discuss how the Easter story of death and resurrection can help at a time of traumatic loss.

At this time of spiritual and emotional intensity, we invited three of our best presenters to reflect on an angle of the coronvavirus story that had given them pause.

Meet the long-eared character from the Christmas story and its modern-day relatives.

Ex-Priest Tim Stead welcomes Things Unseen into his Meditation Barn.

Rosie Dawson examines why Christians are joining the Extinction Rebellion – and how they are answering their critics.

Magid Magid, former Lord Mayor of Shefflied and current Green MEP, explores Ramadan with a panel of fasting experts - answering your questions on the Islamic fasting month.

The family of a young student who died of leukaemia after Christmas last year tell her story and reflect on finding new hope as another festive season approaches.

Shaunaka Rishi Das, an Irish-born Hindu and Director of the Oxford Centre of Hindu Studies, tells us how he has dealt with his wife's suicide by finding comfort in the Hindu idea that she was on loan to him from God and eventually had to be returned.

Is it morally better to eat seafood than meat? Mark Dowd and three guests discuss.

After years of mental illness Guy Stagg embarked on a walk from Canterbury to Jerusalem, spending ten months on a 5,500 km medieval pilgrim route, a journey to the centre of the three Abrahamic faiths.

A young mum, disillusioned by the commercialisation of Christmas, writes an angry letter to Santa - but her world is turned upside down when the angel Gabriel arrives and asks for her help in assassinating the corrupt Mr Claus.

How much is our sense of who we are based on what we look like, and how can that be disrupted? Sally Phillips hears from Vicky Balch, a young woman who lost a limb in the Alton Towers rollercoaster accident, and ended up campaigning on disability through a nude photoshoot.

Babar Ahmad spent 8 years in UK prisons fighting extradition to the US on terrorism charges.

Starring Broadchurch actor Joe Sims, this modern day take on the Easter story has all the traditional twists and turns, emotion and intrigue. One year on, what's the truth behind the fictional West Trent tragedy? And who was responsible?

Writers of Channel 4's hit drama 'Humans' and Artificial Intelligence experts joint forces to plan the construction of our very own android. What rights should it have? Can we baptise it? Or even have sex with it?

When Justin Welby took over as spiritual leader of 80 million Anglicans in 2013, one of his five children shot to unexpected fame: his daughter Katharine, whose passionate tweets about her father's appointment brought her a large Twitter following. Here she talks about her charity work and life in general...

Mark Dowd speaks with a present-day mother who has had to endure the knowledge that her son was in danger of execution, and then had to learn to live with his very public and brutal killing. She is Diane Foley, whose son, US journalist James Foley, was beheaded by Islamic State in Syria in August 2014.