“In an era where television is filled with medical documentaries, Confessions of a Brain Surgeon is unusually compelling fare”
“In an era where television is filled with medical documentaries, Confessions of a Brain Surgeon is unusually compelling fare. Now 74, Henry Marsh says he wants to ‘return to confront the past’ and the result makes for discomfiting but utterly gripping viewing.”
Nick Duerden, The i
“Every professional lifesaver is haunted by the people they were unable to help, but Marsh is so troubled by the relatively few patients who died on his table that he can’t take pleasure in his many successes. He struggles even to remember them. Confessions of a Brain Surgeon is his quest to rectify that, and make peace with himself. The result, powered by Marsh’s pitiless acuity and disarming eccentricity, is a deep meditation on what it means to have lived.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian
“What made this such a worthwhile documentary was Marsh’s raw honesty about all aspects of his life. He took us through not only some of the patients he feels he failed and which haunt him to this day but what he called the failures in his personal life.”
Carol Midgley, The Times
“Henry was the subject of an idiosyncratic hour-long biography. There was no particular reason for the film — no news angle or ‘peg’, as journalists call it. He hasn’t reached a landmark birthday, and he isn’t receiving a knighthood, though he probably deserves one. It’s simply that the film-makers, Harriet Bird and Charlie Russell, seemed fascinated by his personality and his achievements.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
“Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy, an hour-long documentary imported from the US by ITV, covers this sad story much as you might expect. Still, it feels like the background is being skimped to get to the ‘good’ stuff: the criminal investigation sparked by his death and the recent charges brought against five people for supplying the ketamine that led to Perry’s death.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian
“As documentary subjects go Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy certainly had the bones of a good story to work with. If only it had something fresh to bring to a table overlain with tales of fading stars for whom the pressure of fame has proven fatal. Borrowing huge chunks from Friends star Perry’s self-written take on his addiction issues, this ITN-produced effort felt very much like second-hand news.”
Keith Watson, The Telegraph
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