Smallscreen

I once employed an extremely creative man who had a healthy sense of his own value. He requested a bonus of £500,000 on one occasion, explaining, “I have Asperger syndrome, you see. I can’t bear uncertainty. So I must have the money.” After that I took a keen interest in autism, not least because of what it might save me in future negotiations. Since Rain Man, in 1988, writers have explored autism in different ways. A few years ago Stephen Poliakoff made The Lost Prince (BBC1, 2003), a touching evocation of autism in the royal family. He also invented an apparently autistic boy in his more recent television drama, Joe’s Palace (BBC1, 2007). And wasn’t Channel 4’s Ali G—not only pig ignorant but also blind to his interviewees’ sensibilities—inspired by the same theme? In print, Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy has recently given us an Asperger heroine, Lisbeth Salander. Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch (1992) and High Fidelity (1995) showed sympathy for obsessive men who love lists and statistics. And then there was Mark Haddon’s bestseller, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003). This convincingly entered the world of Christopher, a boy with Asperger syndrome. In one of the most revealing scenes, he is given a matchbox by an educational psychologist and asked what’s in it. “Matches,” he replies. Then he opens it revealing a small plastic jewel. He’s then asked what his mother would answer if asked to guess the contents of the same box and he replies, “A jewel.” He can only respond with what he knows. The point is that autistic people find it hard to sense or imagine another person’s point of view or feelings. During April, in Young, Autistic & Stagestruck, Channel 4 showed a group of autistic teenagers attempting to put on a play at the Lyric Theatre in west London. Here is 17-year-old Andrew, with a fixation on Bambi books and bursting with testosterone, poor fellow. The commentary tells us that he has limited social skills, problems with communication and a restricted imagination. He is “classically autistic.” On the first day of rehearsals he meets 19-year-old Claire, whom he starts to hug obsessively. That evening his parents have to explain to him that he needs to consider Claire’s feelings and privacy. They get him to focus on distance, hugs and kissing. He has to write down rules of engagement for the following day: allow Claire a bit more space, at least an arm’s length distance between the two of them; give her a hug at the end of the day (not at the start, not in the middle and only if she says yes); give her a kiss at this point too, but only on the cheek. In this way, the documentary begins to reveal the magnitude of the task parents face in bringing up an autistic child; saint-like patience and infinite stamina is required. Whenever the filmmakers ask the parents about this they soon dissolve into tears, so great has been their sacrifice and so fearful are they about the future of their children. “He’ll never be independent,” say Andrew’s parents. It’s a let’s-do-the-show-right-here project but with a level of dysfunction and tantrums to out-luvvie even the luvviest luvvies. Fiction favours Asperger children because they’re talented and sympathetic. But this series more honestly shows the whole autism spectrum. At one end there is severely autistic Joe, 11, who likes to defecate in his chair and push his fellow thesps off the stage. At the other is 12-year-old Ben, who has Asperger and is fiercely intelligent and frighteningly articulate: “This play is condemned… it’ll either be easy or a catastrophe. I go with catastrophe.” The two directors from the Lyric, David Baker and Montse Gill, edge the children forward during four weeks of rehearsal, while coping with their antics. They control their frustrations magnificently but you detect that, at times, they could cheerfully have machine-gunned the entire cast. This series, from Love Productions, is charming and rewarding. My one small criticism is the commentary’s hackneyed reminders that there are only two weeks to go, one week to go, four days to go and so on. The false emphasis on deadlines to heighten tension has become an epidemic in television reality shows. It treats us as suckers, because we know that it’s a wind-up and the actors, runners, chefs, decorators (delete where necessary) will make it. This has become a syndrome all of its own—ODD (obsessive deadline disorder)—and I’ve had enough of it. I recently turned on BBC4’s In Search of the Perfect Loaf, in late March, and almost immediately heard the dread words, “He’s got just three weeks to create the perfect loaf.” Oh no he hasn’t, I thought, and switched the television off. Telly fans of Britain unite—we can stamp out this temporal corruption with no more than the remote control as our trusty weapon.