Stephen Fry to revisit his series The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive a decade on
Actor and writer to return to the subject in The Not So Secret Life of the Manic Depressive following the landmark documentary about his own mental illness in 2006
Stephen Fry is to revisit the subject of mental illness ten years after his acclaimed documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive.
The Not So Secret Life of the Manic Depressive: 10 Years On will form the centerpiece of a new week-long BBC season focusing on mental illness starting in mid February called In the Mind.
He will be interviewed in the BBC1 programme, talking more about his bipolar condition and his suicide attempt while filming in Uganda in 2012. He will also reflect on how his busy lifestyle exacerbates his condition and his realisation that his illness can’t be cured but only managed.
The programmes comes ten years after he won plaudits for first speaking about living with manic depression and began a national conversation about mental health in BBC2's The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive.
The Not So Secret Life of the Manic Depressive: 10 Years On will examine how different people of all ages deal with bipolarity. One of the subjects interviewed is Cordelia who featured in the original series.
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An academic high-achiever who with the support of her family was struggling to find a place for herself in the world she continues to battling with bipolarity which is such a powerful force in her life that for her it eclipses even the terminal cancer she is now dying from.
Other programmes in the season include My Baby, Psychosis and Me on BBC2 which speaks to two mothers for whom childbirth triggers ‘Postpartum Psychosis’, one of the most severe forms of mental illness.
Postpartum Psychosis is the condition suffered by EastEnders’ character Stacey Branning and over the course of the weeklong season her story is set to “intensify”in the BBC1 soap according to the BBC.
Charlotte Moore, Controller BBC TV Channels and iPlayer said of the season: “Ten years on since Stephen Fry's Emmy award-winning film about manic depression, it now feels like the right time to bring this important subject to a mainstream audience on BBC1. To find out what has changed, what progress has been made and what the future holds for people living with mental health conditions in the UK. Over the last decade, we've broken down taboos and medical advances mean we have a greater understanding of the brain than ever before, but we're not there yet. There is still so much more that needs to be done.”
