TVScope: Cutting Edge - A Boy Called Alex, Channel 4, Thursday, January 24th
Given that the plight of those suffering from the genetically inherited, debilitating and life-threatening condition cystic fibrosis has so recently come under the media spotlight, the airing of this first programme in the new Cutting Edge series was timely.
Highlighting the importance of seeing the individual behind the diagnosis, this hour-long documentary followed Alex Stobbs, a boarder at Eton, as he lives with a disease that has the potential to severely limit his experience of life.
Stobbs, who is now 17, allowed Emmy award-winning film maker Stephen Walker to document three months of his life last year as he strove to take on the greatest challenge of his life. A musical child prodigy, Stobbs has been winning awards for his choral and musical talent since he was eight.
Attending Eton on a scholarship, his ambition was to push and cajole his teachers, fellow students and doctors into allowing him to conduct a performance of Bach's choral work Magnificat, in Eton's 15th-century chapel.
A daunting ambition for anyone in their health; but when undertaken by someone who undergoes the daily rigours of chest physiotherapy, swallowing up to 70 tablets a day, and with a harsh regime of intravenous antibiotics and oxygen administered overnight, then the challenge is even more formidable.
Despite the onerous health hurdles this teenager faces on a daily basis, the focus of the programme was not to show what an ordinary boy he is, but to demonstrate instead that Stobbs is no ordinary teenager, not because of his illness, but in spite of it.
While most 16-year-old boys are preoccupied with notions of whether members of the opposite sex find them "hot" or merely "cute", Stobbs battles to not only get through life but to squeeze every last experience out of it. Devoid of any self-pity and with a feisty humour, his determination to achieve his goals while he still can was palpable.
During the three-month filming process, Stobbs was twice admitted to hospital.
Despite coming very close to death on both occasions, he succeeded in fulfilling his dream of conducting Magnificat, doing so with some considerable style.
Despite having a serious and potentially life-threatening condition, Stobbs has learned the lesson that passion is the key to life. "Music makes me forget about where I am or what state I am in or what's happening to my lungs. Music is my hope. It's everything," he says.
This unsentimental and non-voyeuristic documentary was a reminder that we usually get out of life what we put into it. By all accounts, Stobbs is having one hell of a life.