Horizon: ADHD And Me, with Rory Bremner, BBC 2, Tuesday at 9pm
There’s a reason that there are no “characters” around any more.
It’s a fairly common refrain from older generations that we have become homogenised and that there are fewer ‘characters’ producing the funny situations of their youth.
Of course, we are only beginning to understand the complexities of our own brains and are starting to realise that all those ‘characters’ probably had some degree of autism or other mental difficulties.
One of these conditions is Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).
Anyone who thinks that ADHD is a fictitious problem brought about by the desire to claim benefits should catch up with Rory Bremner’s journey on the iPlayer.
This was the most convincing and informative celebrity fronted television programme in some time.
It turns out that Bremner, a successful comedian and mimic, has fought concentration problems all his life and long suspected that he suffered from ADHD.
But ADHD is infinitely complex and a diagnosis is extremely difficult.
A series of specialists explained that it is a combination of genetic defects and environmental influences and that these two factors mix in an unlimited number of ways producing highly individual effects.
In other words, there are no two ADHD sufferers who have identical problems.
One psychologist used the metaphor of cooking a gingerbread man. The cake has a long list of ingredients and would taste slightly differently if you left any one of the ingredients out or changed the quantities of the ingredients. This represents the genetic influence.
It’s also possible to cook the cake in different ways, at different heats and for different lengths of time. This represents the environmental factors.
The result is a huge variety of gingerbread men each tasting slightly differently from the others.
Bremner had a seven hour consultation, including multiple tests, with one of Britain’s top experts and still the diagnosis was not emphatic.
“It is highly likely you have ADHD,” was the best the Kings College professor could offer him at the end.
An emotional Bremner was devastated by the diagnosis explaining, as best he could, that despite long suspecting he was a sufferer he was struggling with the acknowledgement that he actually had it.
His initially experimentation with drugs proved successful, although he worried that a more stable self would affect his comedy career.
There was some other fascinating stuff in the Horizon special, including the claim that one in three prisoners have ADHD and the theory that human evolution had created high-risking taking ADHD individuals as “pathfinders” and “minesweepers.”
A specialist claimed that easily bored action-seekers identify dangers for the rest of rest of us and that highly homogenised societies are prone to mass extinction.
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Donald Trump: First 100 Days, BBC 1, Monday at 9pm
The media obsession with Donald Trump’s first 100 days saw Jeremy Paxman become the latest British journalist to tour the US in search of a story.
Somehow he avoided all other BBC reporters in the diners of the US rustbelt speaking to Trump’s supporters.
The former Newsnight anchor recounted all the key events of the Trump presidency including the bizarre row about the reporting of his inauguration, the attempted travel bans, sackings, Russian connections and “alternative facts.”
It was a pedestrian run through the first hundred days without any additional information or particular insight.
Although I did like his description of Trump as “a plutocrat with immobile hair and wandering hands.”
Nonetheless, there was a surprising softening towards Trump in the summing up with a recognition that there was widespread support for his bombing of the Syrian regime.
