CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV: A pop star addict’s painful story? I’d rather hear how his wife copes
Matt Willis: Fighting Addiction
Rating:
11 Minutes: America’s Deadliest Mass Shooting
Rating:
When ageing boy band Busted go on tour later this year, the dressing rooms at each venue will be set up to the lads’ specifications, or ‘riders’.
Matt Willis expects to find protein bars, protein powder, nuts and berries, and something called MCT oil, which all boost energy. Bandmate Charlie Simpson asks for four bottles of red wine, two of white, and a few cans of pale ale.
The third member, Matt’s oldest friend James Bourne, requires the soft drink Um Bongo and an assortment of Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations.
What stops them from bringing their own energy bars and choccies, like ordinary human beings, we don’t know. Maybe it would traumatise them, to act their age.
But as Matt detailed his struggles with drink and drugs, in Fighting Addiction (BBC1), it seemed the infantilisation of a pop star’s life was doing him no favours.
He blamed his childhood, his genetics and his career for his problems. ‘Is there a physical explanation,’ he pleaded, ‘something in my head that makes me different?’ He went in search of evidence to support this, from researchers and therapists whose job is to help addicts find ways to offload responsibility for their relapses.
Matt Willis pictured in his new BBC documentary called Matt Willis: Fighting Addiction
Emma Willis breaks down in tears and says she kept a diary of husband Matt Willis’ daily drug use
Twice he told us that the last time he lost control, it started on tour when someone offered him cocaine. He’s a 40-year-old man with a wife and three children — for the life of me, I cannot see that it’s helpful or healthy for him to chant tearfully, ‘It’s not my fault.’
Dino-holiday of the week:
On Natural History Museum: World Of Wonder (Ch5), fossil hunters Sally and Neville told how they discovered evidence of an ancient tropical sea, with urchins and starfish, in rural Wiltshire. Here’s my theory . . . was Stonehenge a prehistoric beach resort?
The documentary started with a powerful moment as Matt’s wife, TV presenter Emma, revealed a diary detailing his alcohol consumption. At first it seemed the programme would focus not on an addict’s self-absorption, but on the devastating toll suffered by his family.
But though she joined him at one therapy session, where the daughter of an addict described the helpless grief of seeing her father spiralling to destruction, Emma was always guarded in her comments.
She hinted at worries for her children, and the need to keep Matt ‘peaceful’, but seemed to be treading on eggshells — forcing a smile that she admitted she did not feel.
Matt’s first thought was to acknowledge how often he had hurt her. ‘The conversation is so often focused on the addict,’ he agreed, ‘but the effect it can have on the people who love you is huge.’
Still, the emphasis quickly shifted on to him. I’d far rather hear how Emma and the thousands of other mums like her find ways to cope — much more useful than another round of therapists assuring addicts that they’re not responsible for their own actions.
One of the survivors on the first episode of 11 Minutes: America’s Deadliest Mass Shooting (BBC2)
All the emphasis in the first episode of 11 Minutes: America’s Deadliest Mass Shooting (BBC2) was on the survivors. The killer’s name wasn’t even mentioned, and that is as it should be.
A picture emerged from the testimony of police and concert-goers, many clearly still suffering from shock, of the slaughter at a country music festival in Las Vegas, in October 2017.
Stories of extraordinary bravery under fire were coupled with an insight into how differently people interpreted what was happening. Fans in the crowd thought the noise of gunshots was fireworks. A musician assumed there was a fault with the sound system, while police feared a co-ordinated attack by multiple terrorists.
Mobile phone footage of the panic and confusion gave the narrative a compelling urgency. But the most incredible pictures came at the end, from police bodycams, as officers prepared to storm the hotel room where the killer was shooting from. The video was as astonishing as their courage.
Source: Read Full Article
