Epilepsy – the unbelievable truth

Our Head of External Affairs, Nicola Swanborough, says a deliberately concocted lie about tigers and epilepsy on a BBC panel show, wasn’t funny and only served to perpetuate the notion that seizures aren’t serious and it’s fine to laugh about them.

The drive home was going well. No potholes, traffic jams, road closures. Just David Mitchell and his BBC Radio 4 panel game - The Unbelievable Truth - a show where four comedians compete to pick out the unbelievable truths in a litany of lies delivered, in turn, by one of the team.
 

Up last was Irish comedian, Neil Delamere. It was his task to slip in some unbelievable truths about tigers among some plausible lies. What could go wrong? 
 

His first statement had me on red alert: “Five per cent of the world’s tigers have epilepsy.” His second statement left me in a state of disbelief: “Berlin Zoo’s tiger has epilepsy and if she escapes, they don’t shoot her – they turn on and off the lights quickly and let nature take its course.”
 

I had metaphorical road failure. Why? Why would script writers, editors, comedians, the BBC for goodness sake, think that it is ok to use epilepsy as a short cut to a cheap laugh that wasn’t even funny. They wouldn’t crack jokes about MS or Parkinson’s or cancer or HIV. So why epilepsy? 

BBC's The Unbelievable Truth Series 30 Episode 2: Scroll to 19:21
 

Licence to laugh

People with epilepsy have a sense of humour. Of course they do. But it’s always wise to leave the jokes to those who have agency to laugh about seizures. Comedian Jake Lambert, for example, skillfully demystifies the condition by laughing about his own epilepsy, but never others. “I mean epilepsy isn’t funny. At all,” he says.
 

Epilepsy's unbelievable truths

Epilepsy leaves people with horrific physical injuries from seizures – broken bones, black eyes, burns from falling against hot radiators. It causes depression, anxiety, social isolation and a heightened rate of suicide, particularly among young men. 
 

It’s never funny. It’s a serious neurological condition with no cure and just a cocktail of powerful medications that may or may not work. For one third of the 600,000+ people in the UK with epilepsy, the answer is “not”.
 

Cat Deeley comment

It's only a few weeks since the Cat Deeley incident on This Morning when the ITV presenter was caught dancing on camera and joked that she was having a seizure. The audience and charities, including the Epilepsy Society, were shocked and appalled. Cat made a public apology, but the outcry refused to subside, even from those who had worshipped Cat since childhood.
 

David Mitchell’s crew, by comparison, got away scot-free. Except that’s not fair. Although part of The Unbelievable Truth may be ad libbed – and very funny – much of it is scripted and therefore edited and checked in the editing suite. At some point alarm bells should have rung.
 

Cat Deeley made an ill-advised mistake in a show where the conversation is constant and there are 150 minutes to fill every weekday. Neil Delaware only had minutes to fill with a prepared script that could easily have used spurious ‘facts’ about tigers and epilepsy without needing to joke about triggering a seizure with flashing lights.
 

Photosensitivity and Zach's Law

It was only last year that the government passed a new law to safeguard people with epilepsy from internet trolls who try to trigger seizures by sending flashing images to people with epilepsy via social media platforms. Only three per cent of people with epilepsy are photosensitive but the offence is dangerous. 1,200 people die from seizures in the UK every year.
 

And yes, all unbelievable truths.
 

Comedy must be sharp, edgy and it must, of course, push the boundaries. But not at the expense of people with any sort of disability. And not at the expense of people whose lives are dominated by seizures.
 

Trail blazers

There are 24.4 million BBC licences in force in the UK. One in 100 people has epilepsy so,  244,000 licence fee payers are likely to have the condition. Another unbelievable truth. By default, we look to the BBC to blaze a trail of decency and high standards when it comes to respecting its audience. And mostly, they do. In the case of epilepsy, their warnings of flashing images on the news are exemplary. But on this occasion there is still work to do.
 

Ironically, Neil Delaware’s piece ended with a rather endearing fact. Dublin Zoo has a female tiger with epilepsy called Tundra, who he met when he was a guest zookeeper for a tv programme. Not very funny, admittedly. But neither was the original “fact”.