TV review: The Curious Case of the Clark Brothers; Dying for Clear Skin<\/p>\n
A distressing film gave a glimpse of two brothers as they slowly slide back into childhood \u2013 and the elderly parents who must watch their boys suffer<\/p>\n
\nMatthew and Michael Clark in C4\u2032s The Curious Case of the Clark Brothers. Photograph: Caters News Agency<\/p>\n
The Curious Case of the Clark Brothers<\/strong> (C4) must rank as one of the most unremittingly distressing things I have ever seen on television. If you saw it, you\u2019ll know what I mean; if you didn\u2019t, I\u2019m sorry to have to bring it to your attention.<\/p>\n Brothers Michael and Matthew Clark both suffer from a rare form of leukodystrophy, a genetic disorder that attacks the myelin sheath covering the nerve fibres of the brain. The illness is causing them to become increasingly childlike, their behaviour and ability to function steadily regressing. They need constant care and, as bleak as the present is, the prognosis is worse.<\/p>\n The \u201ccurious\u201d aspect of the situation is that Matthew is 39 and Michael 42. Neither brother displayed any symptoms until they were in their mid-30s, by which time both men had been married and divorced. Michael had served in the RAF. Matthew had a 19-year-old daughter, Lydia, who was herself about to have a child.<\/p>\n Shortly before the disease asserted itself, the brothers\u2019 parents, Tony and Christine, moved to Spain. Michael and Matthew lived together in a one-bedroom flat in Lincoln, their deterioration noticed only by neighbours. By the time this programme caught up with the story, Tony and Christine had moved back and assumed sole care of their sons for 27 weeks, in the same one-bed flat.<\/p>\n The tabloids labelled the brothers \u201creal-life Benjamin Buttons\u201d \u2013 alluding to the Brad Pitt film about a man who is born old and regresses to infancy \u2013 a reference that displeases Christine (Channel 4, with its knack for sensational titles, has rather tastelessly repeated the offence). \u201cThey\u2019re not children,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to treat them as adults with a problem.\u201d Of Matthew she says: \u201cHe knows he\u2019s a man. He knows he\u2019s lived all his life, he\u2019s got memories.\u201d<\/p>\n It might be of some comfort to think that as their adult comprehension slips away, so might some of the suffering that attends the illness, but this isn\u2019t the case. The brothers spend a lot of time bewildered and distressed. Matthew wakes up most mornings crying inconsolably. It was touching to watch them together, an obvious fraternal affection still intact, especially knowing that in the early days the disease drove them apart. Michael ended up sleeping rough.<\/p>\n The programme was primarily about the suffering of the elderly parents, particularly Christine, whose raw emotions were very hard to watch. She cannot think about the future \u2013 a decade, perhaps, of increasing dependency, ending in death. Her biggest worry is that she won\u2019t be alive to see things through. Assurances from the parent of another sufferer that she will are, as you might imagine, no help at all.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease God, don\u2019t take my sons,\u201d said Christine, before adding: \u201cTony tells me there isn\u2019t a God.\u201d Even the birth of her great-grandson (Matthew\u2019s grandson) dredged up more grief.<\/p>\n Title apart, it was a programme made with care and sensitivity. But I\u2019m not sure what purpose was served by my watching it. If it was to open a heretofore capped well of fear and despair deep in my guts, job done.<\/p>\n If you would like to learn more about how you can earn an income by sharing blogs like this about the curious case of the clark brothers<\/span>, then now to learn more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have You Heard About the Curious Case of the Clark Brothers? TV review: The Curious Case of the Clark Brothers; Dying for Clear Skin A distressing film gave a glimpse of two brothers as they slowly slide back into childhood \u2013 and the elderly parents who must watch their boys suffer Matthew and Michael Clark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1772,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,29,30,31],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-viral","tag-c4","tag-clark-brothers","tag-curious-case-of-the-clark-brothers","tag-michael-and-matthew-clar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1772"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/perfectpitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}