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Manic depression is not an easy condition to understand. In the capable hands of British comedian Stephen Fry, the disease was made clearer and less frightening in a two-part documentary series which started on TV One very late last Sunday.
Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of a Manic
Depressive began with Fry talking about the highly publicised manic episode 11 years ago when he walked out of a play and ran away to Europe. Because he was famous, Fry's meltdown was instantly front page news and he was eventually diagnosed as bipolar at the age of 37.
In search of answers, Fry returned to the school from which he'd been expelled for stealing, and he deduced that being bipolar had probably and ironically contributed to the success of his career as a wit. The highs, he said, when they come, are very high. Hence the frenetic comedy and boundless energy. But the lows have led to several suicide attempts - not cries for help but real attempts. Self-medicating - imbibing huge amounts of cocaine and vodka - had been a big part of his life as well.
Fry talked to Carrie Fisher, another famous self-medicator, and he met up with cook Rick Stein on the edge of the Cornwall cliff from which Stein's father had dived. Not jumped, dived, when Stein was a teenager. Consequently, Stein said he'd spent most of his adult life worrying about his own mental stability and the vulnerability of his own sons.
I guess a programme like this is valuable if it gives viewers insight but it wasn't easy to sit through. In fact, it was pretty depressing. So I tried to cheer myself up by watching a recording of last Tuesday's Whatever Happened To . . ? There has been some fuss over this Paul Holmes-returns-to-TVNZ show because of its $1.2 million Government funding and, well, its content.
The first item, a reunion between Wahine hero Brian and the baby he'd saved, Joanne, was quite moving, despite an overwrought script describing the sinking as a Titanic-like tragedy.
Joanne even blew on her mother's lifejacket whistle when commanded to by Holmes. Her mother died in a car crash.
WHT started to go a bit mad with the arrival of three diehard David Cassidy fans. Bless them: 33 years after they first fell in love with the "beeyootiful" Cassidy, there he was, on stage with them, feeling blessed by their loyalty. Cassidy and his host entered into a completely pointless conversation about former Partridge child star Susan Dey. And then, right in front of his three devoted fans, the heavily sweating Cassidy went and gave his hotel key card to Louise Wallace! The ingrate.
I think the show revealed its colours when Holmes wheeled on Chloe from Wainuiomata, who was a vulnerable and exploited creature when her "comet" (Holmes' word) briefly soared in 1994. Chloe's tale of how she sent her tiger slippers to Te Papa, only to have them returned by courier, was sad. Now she is married to a Yugoslav who's losing his teeth and addicted to cigarettes and PlayStation2, and she makes very strange mermaid dolls out of discarded bits and bobs. Holmes held one of these dolls and her handbag as Chloe - invited by him, but presumably pre-arranged - swayed around the stage cooing I Wanna Be Loved By You, twirling around so her knee-high fishnets were on full display. I could have cried for her. I didn't watch the rest of the show. I felt too depressed.