There are two ways to view Love My Face, Channel 4’s latest venture into one of its best-loved terrains – the place where medicine and society meet. The first is as a testament to man’s inhumanity to man, based on the accounts of lives made miserable by bullying and exploitation of the slightest visible difference sported by an individual. The second is as a shining example of the human spirit’s ability to endure adversity and forge a new, better life out of suffering. Over the four hour-long episodes you may find yourself pinging back and forth many times between the two.
The format is familiar. At a specialised treatment facility, a group of people are brought together who have varying degrees of facial differences – ranging, for example, from a conventionally handsome young man with a keloid scar growing just noticeably on the back of his earlobe, to a man who was set on fire by his mentally ill uncle and suffered burns over nearly half his body, including his face and scalp. A team of doctors awaits to provide them with their medical options. And presenter Jono Lancaster, who has Treacher Collins syndrome, which means the bones of his face did not develop in the usual way before birth, offers emotional support and ways of thinking about their conditions and situations that may enable them to come to terms with them better – and perhaps avoid physical intervention.
Lancaster is a gift to television generally, and this programme in particular. A natural communicator, he is also that rare breed who has clearly lived through much, analysed it thoroughly and internalised what worked for him in such a way that he can share it with others in direct, ordinary and therefore deeply affecting terms, instead of sounding like a therapised robot. He speaks with a wonderful combination of authority and compassion. You can see even the most traumatised patients falling under his spell and beginning to heal almost in real time.
And there is real trauma here. Most notably, perhaps, in Kerry’s story. She longs to get rid of a stubborn double chin that persists despite her losing several stone after a lifetime of being overweight. Her size was one of her abusive father’s favourite subjects of attack, which left her no respite from the other comments she received at school and in public. “That’s how I felt before I was allowed to become anybody,” she says. She is now slim and, it is implied, has been in therapy before. But her chin, she explains on the verge of tears, “is what’s left of my dad. I’ve tried so hard to get rid of his voice.” Now she wants the physical reminder gone too.
Love My Face is (ironically) a superficial production. Whatever the actual extent of Jono’s discussions with each participant, we are shown very little of it (but enough, as I say, to appreciate his talent for connecting and supporting each one according to their needs). More time is spent with the medics and their proffered plans – all of which are taken up by their subjects, most of whom have been denied further treatment on the NHS because it is “only” cosmetic – and on the obligatory reveals after the necessary weeks or months of care. For any deeper meanings or lessons to be learned, the viewer must do his or her own running.
It is fascinating, for example, to note the impact on the participants of a characteristic acquired during adolescence, such as Mia’s alopecia, and the repeated mentions of becoming self-conscious only as they were tormented at secondary school. It’s a painful reminder of how very little you need to deviate from the norm at that time to be marked – by yourself and by those around you – for life. We hear that Hattie was called a “minger” and “ugly” for her “Concorde” nose, and has “always been shut down … I feel like I shouldn’t be here.” Kayleigh talks of her “shame” about the port wine stain birthmark that covers part of her face, and says she hasn’t left the house without makeup since she was first old enough to apply it.
You can also wonder at the gulf between people’s perceptions of themselves and the reality. There are a couple of times in the series when it is hard to see what is troubling a participant – with even fellow guests struggling – until it is pointed out. It is unclear whether anyone’s perspective shifts when they are in the company of people whose differences are far more marked. This also makes you question how much of Jono’s magic would be required to undo the harm social intolerance has caused the participants (who, for the most part, are not physically circumscribed in any way by their conditions) so that they can go without the medical interventions on offer.
The programme itself, however, is content to end with the big visual reveals and words of gratitude to Jono for helping them find some peace with their experiences. Good enough, I suppose.
• Love My Face is on Channel 4
