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True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

Outlook: Peace, Love, Friendship - and Elvish

Peace, Friendship and Love

15/03/2014

Peace, Love, Friendship - and Elvish

BBC World Service - Outlook, Peace, Love, Friendship - and Elvish

Ex-paramilitary preaching peace, Japan's paid friends, and the first gay First Lady.

The former paramilitary who now preaches peace, Japan's paid friends, Iceland's first gay First Lady, and the Syrian refugees re-enacting 'The Trojan Women'.

Pastor Billy McCurrie is a former Northern Irish paramilitary who aged 17 killed a man to avenge his father's murder. He tells Lucy Ash how he became a Baptist minister, and now preaches peace to young people.

In Japan increasing numbers of people are renting "friends", but not for just for fun.  Many are desperately lonely.  40-year-old Teruko Horikoshi is on the books of one of the largest agencies which rents out people by the hour to act as friends for those in need of company. 

Icelandic playwright and author Jónína Leósdóttir is the first openly gay First Lady. She is married to the former Prime Minister of Iceland, Johanna Siguroardottir.  But when they first met they were both married mothers - she tells the story of how their relationship came about.  

Outlook's Dale Gavlak meets a group of Syrian women living as refugees in Jordan who have been taking part in a production of the ancient Greek play 'The Trojan Women', by Euripides. The drama bears eerie parallels to their own experiences of war, and has helped them work through the trauma and loss they experienced back home.

Dialect coach Andrew Jack can do 42 different accents and trains Hollywood actors. He even taught Elvish in The Lord of The Rings films.

Picture: Pastor Billy McCurrie, Teruko Horikoshi and Jónína Leósdóttir

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