As members of the public tour a fake ‘residential home’ for disabled people riddled with Nazi ideology, you desperately hope someone will speak up. Prepare for the most excruciating viewing of your life
I have never had to pause a programme halfway through before to catch my breath. That is until The Experiment – Channel 4’s highly controversial social exercise designed to find out “how susceptible the British public are” to Nazi ideology about disabled people. This is a show so disturbing, timely and surreal that within 90 seconds of viewing it alone, I am looking around for confirmation from an empty room that any of this is happening.
We start with a clip of Hitler. Against a backdrop of growing anti-benefits and ableist rhetoric, presenters Mat Fraser and Sophie Morgan fear the disabled community globally are once again being framed as a financial burden. Their question is: can the British public be persuaded that disabled people should live in “money saving” segregated institutions and be given low-skilled jobs to be productive?