Channel 4’s Cutting Edge is of course renowned for bringing to our screens moving, emotive and thought provoking films, but this must be one of the most alternately desperately sad and incredibly inspiring that I’ve ever seen.

Katie Piper’s life changed when she was attacked; sulphuric acid was thrown in her face by way of revenge from a jilted boyfriend. He determined that he would ruin her life, and he tried, but ultimately, he hasn’t succeeded because for as much as Katie’s life is now very different, the surgeon, Mohammad Ali Jawad, who was hailed as a “medical miracle” is helping her piece back together her beautiful face. Read more & comment »

Alex Stobbs first appeared on our screens when we watched the touching documentary, A Boy Called Alex. It was a tale of determination and the love of life over, or perhaps in spite of, adversity. The main adversity for Alex is that he has cystic fibrosis, and a lesser one is that he’s slightly deaf.

But Alex’s resolve to forge on doing exactly what he wants and not what his disease dictates has seen him emerge from the cocoon of his childhood to fly the nest all the way to the life of a student at Cambridge.

It was here that we rejoined Alex’s life-story; he’s now a young man and a choral scholar at King’s College, and during the film, Alex was trying hard to learn to conduct the three-hour Bach masterpiece, St Matthew Passion. And the pursuit of perfection in his role nearly pushed Alex’s frail health over the edge. Read more & comment »

I missed this Cutting Edge film when it was on Channel 4 on Thursday, so I caught up with it on More 4 last night, and it made for harrowing and frustrating viewing.

Throughout the film, we heard the story from both the viewpoint of Carl Probyn, Jaycee Lee’s then step-father, and the police who dealt with the case. What transpired was a tale of missed opportunities, shoddy police work and, most movingly, the destructive impact Jaycee Lee’s disappearance had on Carl and his ex-wife Terry.

We all know the story so I don’t need to recap that, but that said, part of last night’s film re-enacted Carl’s role in witnessing and reporting 11 year old Jaycee Lee’s abduction. He immediately mobilised himself and his neighbours to try to get a “lock down” on the area, but the police didn’t do likewise, and Phillip and Nancy Garrido fled over 100 miles to Antioch in California, despite the fact that Carl had given an extremely accurate description of the car and Nancy Garrido. Read more & comment »

Cutting Edge returns with the first in-depth documentary about the discovery that stunned the world: a girl kidnapped as an 11-year-old and found – just last month – aged 29.

In June 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard was waiting at the bus stop on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe when a grey Ford saloon pulled up alongside her. A man and woman jumped out, bundled her into the car and drove off. The kidnap was witnessed by Jaycee Lee’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, who chased in vain after the car.

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Cutting Edge follows the work of Birmingham City Council’s building control unit, the biggest in the country with 80 staff. The programme joins the inspectors as they investigate anonymous tip-offs, uncover dangerous building practices and enforce the law against reluctant home-owners and dodgy builders, even presiding over demolitions if the rules and regulations are persistently ignored. The programme also meets the homeowners trying to improve their homes while satisfying the regulations.

Thursday 28 May 2009
9:00pm

This amazing and intensely moving documentary followed two women who were both pregnant with identical twin boys. Sarah’s babies, Conner and Cody, and Natalie’s babies, George and Casper, all had the potentially fatal illness TTTS, Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, which basically meant that one of the twins of both pregnancies was haemorrhaging into the other.

This resulted in one twin being very tiny and ‘stuck’ to the wall of the womb while the other twin produced such excessive amounts of fluid – due to the increased workload on his heart – that in Sarah’s case meant that at 21 weeks, she looked more like she was full-term and she was in a great deal of pain. Read more & comment »

Last night’s Cutting Edge film was a powerful, sad and evocative insight into what happens when someone goes missing. The entire programme was made by Zoe Callan – from filming to directing to providing comfort to those she filmed – and it was all the better for it. After all, having someone go missing must be one of the most devastating things that can happen to those who love them so it seemed somehow appropriate that Callan kept the ‘crew’ to the bare minimum.

These people’s lives have been turned upside down and everything about them examined by police in their efforts to trace whoever’s gone missing, so further intrusion by dozens of film folk wouldn’t have seemed right, and Callan got the balance just right; we saw raw emotion, exasperation, fear, hard police work made harder by incompetence and the terrible bewilderment when someone goes missing and of course the inevitable, why?

It’s a shocking fact that some 300 people are reported missing every week in Greater Manchester alone and although most of them turn up, some of them don’t; it’s the same up and down the country and when someone goes missing, the first 72 hours are vital to the police. If the person isn’t found within that time, it becomes less likely they ever will be… Read more & comment »

Every year in Britain the police receive nearly a quarter of a million calls about missing people. As part of Cutting Edge , this new documentary follows three families’ desperate searches to find loved ones and features exclusive access to Greater Manchester Police’s investigations. 81-year-old Josephine O’Hara has disappeared, and may also have taken her life savings of £10,000 with her. Meanwhile, 25-year-old Adam Warren left home for an appointment at the Job Centre 36 hours ago and hasn’t returned. And five years ago another young father, Vinny Derrick, disappeared after a night out with friends. His wife Vicki still has no idea what happened to her husband.

Thursday 16 April 2009
9:00pm

Are sporting stars born or made? And how do you raise a child champion? This Cutting Edge film follows four parents and their offspring doing whatever it takes to propel their young children to the top of the tennis, boxing and golfing worlds. These parents are taking a massive gamble with their children’s lives. They have devoted themselves to taking their kids to the top: sometimes giving up jobs, cashing in savings and in two cases, taking their children out of school. Do these children have what it takes to make it? And if not, how will they and their parents cope?

What an interesting but also very sad programme this was. I felt it was sad on many levels; sad as in literally upsetting as we witnessed the heartbreak and desperation of couples who’d give anything to have a child of their own, and sad as in my personal feeling was that at least some of the women supposedly ‘addicted’ to surrogacy are more addicted to the cash reward.

But having said that, some of the women featured in the film were genuinely ‘addicted’, but not necessarily to surrogacy per se, but to the psychological need to be needed. The surrogacy part was just a means to fulfilling that end.

It wasn’t comfortable viewing but as always with Cutting Edge, it was non-judgemental viewing too, which in some ways makes it harder; it’s sometimes quite a pleasant relief to be told what to think! I jest, it’s not of course and I’ve always admired Cutting Edge for its – primarily – unbiased reportage of actualities rather than judgemental commentary. Read more & comment »

Around a thousand surrogate babies have been born in the UK over the past two decades. And in recent years, half of them have been born to serial surrogates: women who’ve been surrogates more than once. The truth behind what drives these women is far more complex than simply money or altruism. This Cutting Edge film follows the extraordinary stories of Jill, Tammy Lynn, Amanda and Carole, who are addicted to giving babies away.

Monday 9 March 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4

This Cutting Edge film by Hilary Clarke was without a doubt one of the funniest things I’ve seen on TV in a long time. It was – one assumed from the title – going to heavily feature bin men, but it didn’t; there was pretty much just the one – who I’ll come to later – but the other characters in the film were fascinating because their apparent insipidness belied their British Bull-dogged determination not to be bested by those in the upper echelons of rubbish management.

The likes of Harry Enfield would’ve had a field day with the real-life characters in this documentary, and one of my favourites was international man of mystery Keith Perkins… Read more & comment »

It used to be so simple: you put out your rubbish and the bin men took it away. Not any more. War has broken out between the people who are putting out too much rubbish and the councils whose job it is to dispose of it all. As landfill space runs out and the government increases recycling targets, town halls across the country are getting tough about recycling, fly-tipping and litter. They’re tracking down bin delinquents and making them pay. And the public are fighting back. This Cutting Edge film follows the men and women on both sides of the battle.

Monday 2 March 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4

As part of the Cutting Edge strand of films, award-winning documentary-maker Sue Bourne ( My Street, Wedding Days, Mum and Me ) tells the story of an ordinary day in modern Britain through the births, marriages and funerals that take place in one city over 24 hours. Filmed in Bristol on the longest day of 2008, Love, Life, Death in a Day explores landmark events in the cycle of life as ordinary people go through life-changing events in a moving and revealing snapshot of 21 century Britain.

Thursday 26 February 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4

In November last year, 18-year-old Laura Williams from Shrewsbury made medical history by becoming the youngest mother in the world to give birth to conjoined twins – Hope and Faith. Channel 4 cameras were granted exclusive access to the family from the moment the two girls – joined from shoulder to waist – were delivered by Caesarean section. This moving and at times harrowing Cutting Edge follows the girls’ fight for life step-by-step alongside their parents.

Thursday 19 February 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4