There's reality TV, where real people act out versions of themselves on shows such as Made in Chelsea or Big Brother, and then there's real reality TV, such as documentary maker Louis Theroux's new series.
In the first powerful film he interviewed alcoholics and from most viewers' perspectives there was probably the comfort of a "no, that couldn't happen to me" response. Not so in his second film, A Different Brain (Sunday, BBC Two). The people here, he says as he walks around a residential care unit, "are here because of car crashes, falls, strokes and aneurysms", and all have acquired brain injuries. These are simple events with catastrophic results that could happen to anyone. In the background, we see other users of the service, some people in wheelchairs, others being fed, and all are immediately recognisable as living with a profound disability. Not so his interviewees who live up to the oft repeated description of acquired brain injury as being "a hidden disability". The brain, he says, is the one part of your body that when you injure it, as well as causing physical problems, it can also change your personality and behaviour entirely.
It’s sobering, count-your-blessings viewing for a Sunday night. And Theroux does what he does best – hangs out, chats, asks ordinary questions – the people he interviews are so comfortable with him you suspect he has spent much more time with them than what is shown.
It’s the contrast that is the most painful to see as he visits their families to get a sense of who they were “before”. There’s 38-year-old Amanda, a veterinary nurse married with two young boys who fell off a horse and banged her head. Theroux meets her as she returns to live with her family – and a round the clock carer – after two years in hospital. She is quite simply a different person; her children seem almost afraid of this mother who looks mostly the same but who can’t relate to them as before.
All the cases are tragic (even if they are never presented as such) but upbeat, chatty Natalie’s story is particularly poignant. Fifteen years previously, at age 33 and a diabetic, she tried to kill herself with an insulin overdose and instead was left brain damaged and needing residential care. There are multiple cruelties in that sentence.
Most of his interviewees have supportive, loving families, trying to come to terms with this new person their loved one has become, and Theroux sees hope in that, ending the thought-provoking film with an upbeat speech. I don’t buy it though, and I suspect the people with acquired brain injury interviewed wouldn’t have bought it before their accidents either.
