I don’t have any issue playing from BBC Sounds.

Possibly try reauthorising the service in the app to see if that fixes the playback issue for you.

Thank you for that suggestion, that seems to have worked for the stations and a few of the podcasts.

Is having to re authenticate a common issue?

I wouldn’t say it’s that common, but you may have to do it occasionally.

Especially worth trying when there doesn’t appear to be a widespread issue affecting many users of the same music service.

The BBC recently enabled geo-fencing to block BBC Sounds from foreigners, so this may have triggered a re-authentication.

However, it still works for me, and I am 3000 miles away from the UK, so YMMV.