Featured Series
Cook in the PacificThen and Now
A new documentary podcast about Captain James Cook — and what his voyages made of the world.
The Endeavour in the Pacific (AI image)
A new documentary podcast about Captain James Cook — and what his voyages made of the world.
I’ve produced many long-form audio documentaries and podcasts for the BBC and independently. When I had the chance to spend several months in Fiji in the Pacific, I saw it as a chance to work on a new project.
Cook in the Pacific →
I’ve always been fascinated by James Cook — Captain Cook as we called him back then. It was a point of pride that, like me, he was born near Middlesbrough. On family days out we’d walk up to the Captain Cook monument on the Cleveland Hills. Family holidays were spent in Staithes and nearby Whitby, the historic port where he was an apprentice, and where they built the ship that would take him to the other side of the world.
But for all that, I never imagined I’d get any closer to him than reading about his discoveries and studying maps of his voyage. And yet in early 2026 I found myself — unexpectedly — on an island in the Pacific, in the city of Suva on Fiji, a chance to research the story of Cook’s explorations and to understand the consequences of his three voyages today. This is my Cook in the Pacific podcast.
Politics, economics, and culture — reported from the ground up. A decade of dispatches from a country under pressure.
Urban green space, mental health, and the cities we build. Made at the moment lockdown changed how we understood both — and still relevant as those cities come under pressure.