The Guide #232: From documentary shock to Bafta acclaim – how the screen shaped our understanding of Tourette’s
The wildfire surrounding last week’s Bafta ceremony – where Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson involuntarily shouted a racial slur at actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo, and the BBC aired the moment – continues to rage,Criticisms have been levelled at, and investigations opened by, the Beeb and Bafta; hundreds of news stories and comment pieces have been devoted to the incident (if you read anything, make sure it’s this clear-eyed piece from Jason Okundaye, who was at the ceremony); and the climate on social media has been toxic, with much of the ire directed at Davidson himself,It’s an ire that is based on a complete misunderstanding of coprolalia, the form of Tourette syndrome (TS) that Davidson has, which results in the unintended and completely involuntary utterance of offensive or inappropriate remarks,There’s an unhappy irony at play here because Davidson, arguably more than any other person in Britain, has been responsible for raising awareness of TS,There’s an unfortunate symmetry, too, to the fact that the incident was shown on primetime BBC, because that was where Davidson was first brought to national attention as the subject of the landmark 1989 documentary John’s Not Mad.
Directed by film-maker Valerie Kaye, and aired as part of the popular science series QED, the half-hour film – available on DVD or to rent or stream on Prime Video – shadows a 15-year-old Davidson around his home town of Galashiels, in the Scottish Borders, as he struggles both with his condition and the intolerance of those around him (his own grandmother claimed that he was possessed by the devil).It’s hard to exaggerate the significance of John’s Not Mad on public awareness.Though TS was first described a century before by the French neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette, attention paid to the condition was restricted to specialist medical journals.“It has been so little known that until recently few doctors had ever heard of it,” the Guardian’s first report on the condition in 1978 noted.That all changed with the documentary, broadcast at a time when the vast majority of the country only had access to four channels, and viewing figures were far higher.
The broadcaster Ben Bailey Smith, who had just started secondary school at the time, remembered the documentary being “huge … Everyone in the playground was quoting him.”That was, of course, the negative side of the documentary’s popularity: for Davidson, increased attention was often accompanied by ridicule.But the film, which opens with him admitting suicidal thoughts, is at pains to underscore the seriousness of TS – almost to a fault.At times it’s an unbearably sombre watch, particularly in comparison to Kaye’s follow-up The Boy Can’t Help It.Broadcast in 2002, that film catches up with Davidson, now in his late 20s, doing caretaker work in a community centre, and a strikingly different character from the anguished teen of the original film: thoughtful, charitable and full of humour.
“I don’t mind it when people laugh with me,” he says at one point and later cheerfully recounts the challenges of playing hide and seek as a kid (“I was always the one shouting ‘I’m here’”),By the time the 2009 follow-up documentary Tourette’s: I Swear I Can’t Help It aired, awareness had increased even further, thanks to Big Brother,Eight million viewers had watched Pete Bennett, who has TS, win the seventh series of the reality show in 2006, a victory that campaigners hailed as “the best PR job anyone could have done” for the condition,A whole suite of Tourette syndrome programming would be commissioned in its wake, from documentaries investigating its causes to a reality series that saw people with TS put on a variety show,Along with offering a more hopeful tone than early coverage of the condition had, many of these shows also avoided focusing solely on coprolalia – which only affects a small number of people with TS.
Even so, people with the condition believe there is still too much of a media focus on its “most ‘extreme’ and ‘entertaining’ aspects”, as well as a “tragedy mindset” that doesn’t tally with reality.I Swear, the terrific biopic of Davidson’s life – and the reason that he was attending the Baftas in the first place (the film was nominated for six awards and won two, including best leading actor for Robert Aramayo, who plays Davidson) – is hopefully another step away from those tropes and towards greater understanding of TS.Davidson, played with remarkable care by Aramayo, is never framed as a simple victim, but rather someone with agency, and the capacity to make mistakes.And the film follows Davidson’s own mantra about laughing with him – witness the scene where a teen with TS (played by an actor with the condition) and Aramayo’s Davidson embark on a flurry of offensive outbursts before nodding and laughing in shared recognition.Praised by reviewers and campaigners for its compassion and accuracy, the film has also enjoyed the sort of slow-building success that moderately budgeted British dramas weren’t thought to achieve any more.
Hopefully a rare positive to come out of the Baftas incident and its aftermath will be that even more people see the film – from the vitriol Davidson has faced since the ceremony, it’s clear that plenty need to.To read the complete version of this newsletter please subscribe to receive The Guide in your inbox every Friday
UK firms in Middle East face heightened threat from Iran hackers, agency warns
UK businesses with a presence in the Middle East have been urged to step up vigilance against cyber threats from Iran after US-Israeli attacks.The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said there was “almost certainly” a heightened risk of an indirect cyber threat for organisations that had offices, or supply chains, in the Middle East.The UK’s cybersecurity agency said Iran remained a threat despite an extensive bombing campaign that has devastated the country’s political and military leadership, including the death of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.“Iranian state and Iran-linked cyber actors almost certainly currently maintain at least some capability to conduct cyber activity,” said the NCSC.The agency said in an alert published on Monday that there was “likely” no significant change in the direct cyber threat from Iran to the UK, but organisations should prepare for the risk of collateral damage from Iran-linked hacktivists
US military reportedly used Claude in Iran strikes despite Trump’s ban
The US military reportedly used Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, to inform its attack on Iran despite Donald Trump’s decision, announced hours earlier, to sever all ties with the company and its artificial intelligence tools.The use of Claude during the massive joint US-Israel bombardment of Iran that began on Saturday was reported by the Wall Street Journal and Axios. It underlines the complexity of the US military withdrawing powerful AI tools from its missions when the technology is already intricately embedded in operations.According to the Journal, US military command used the tools for intelligence purposes, as well as to help select targets and carry out battlefield simulations.On Friday, just hours before the Iran attack began, Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using Claude immediately
Datacentre developers face calls to disclose effect on UK’s net emissions
Datacentre developers are facing pressure to reveal whether their projects will increase the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions, amid concerns the sites could double national electricity demand.Campaign groups have written to the UK technology secretary, Liz Kendall, warning that the energy required by new AI infrastructure poses a “serious threat to efforts to decarbonise the electricity grid”.Developers should demonstrate that their projects will not cause an increase in the UK’s overall CO2 emissions or local water scarcity, as part of a forthcoming national policy statement (NPS) on datacentres, the letter says.“Without these commitments, such vast electricity use will inevitably generate vast climate emissions,” the campaigners write.The letter is signed by Foxglove, a group that campaigns against big tech dominance, and five other non-governmental organisations including the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth
OpenAI to work with Pentagon after Anthropic dropped by Trump over company’s ethics concerns
OpenAI said it had struck a deal with the Pentagon to supply AI to classified US military networks, hours after Donald Trump ordered the government to stop using the services of one of the company’s main competitors.Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, announced the move on Friday night. It came after an agreement between Anthropic, a rival AI company that runs the Claude system, and the Trump administration broke down after Anthropic sought assurances its technology would not be used for mass surveillance – nor for autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human input.Announcing the deal, Altman insisted that OpenAI’s agreement with the government included assurances that it would not be used to those ends.“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote on X
Her husband wanted to use ChatGPT to create sustainable housing. Then it took over his life.
On 7 August, Kate Fox received a phone call that upended her life. A medical examiner said that her husband, Joe Ceccanti – who had been missing for several hours – had jumped from a railway overpass and died. He was 48.Fox couldn’t believe it. Ceccanti had no history of depression, she said, nor was he suicidal – he was the “most hopeful person” she had ever known
Suicide forum found to be in breach of Online Safety Act after failing to block UK users
A suicide forum linked to deaths in Britain has been ruled provisionally in breach of the Online Safety Act after it failed to properly block access to UK users when ordered to do so last year.Ofcom, the online regulator, said it could now apply to the courts to demand internet service providers block access to the site in the UK. This will depend on how the site, which also faces fines, responds over the next 10 days.Coroners had been raising concerns about the links between the forum and suicides in the UK since at least 2019, campaigners said. The family of 17-year-old Vlad Nikolin-Caisley, from Southampton, said he took his own life in 2024 after using the site, which Ofcom is not naming
The Guide #232: From documentary shock to Bafta acclaim – how the screen shaped our understanding of Tourette’s
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