Inside Harley Street, BBC2 - review: Vanessa Engle saves real characters till last

The three-part documentary has provided fascinating insight into private healthcare and cosmetic medicine

Ellen E. Jones
Tuesday 28 April 2015 08:28 BST
Comments
Inside Harley Street
Inside Harley Street (BBC)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Some of the alternative medicines offered in Inside Harley Street wouldn't have been out of place in ex-Maester's Qyburn grisly laboratory. Whatever you've got, they can cure it, and if you don't have anything wrong with you? They'll cure that too. All for a price, of course.

Vanessa Engle's three-part documentary has already provided fascinating insight into private healthcare and cosmetic medicine, but she'd apparently saved the real characters till last. A neurologist with a mad scientist accent prescribed intravenous vitamin infusions to stressed-out City execs at £280 a pop and a practitioner of the emotional freedom technique asked patients to describe the colour of their pain: "If someone says to me it's red, I know that's about anger and frustration, if it's yellow, I know that's about childhood."

Then there was Maryam Rahbari, a woman moved to tears by love for her own therapeutic leeches. One of Maryam's clients said he was turned on to the benefits of blood-sucking worms by an ex-girlfriend's mother. She lived, appropriately enough, in Transylvania.

Engle was sure to ask all the pertinent-impertinent questions, such as "Are you a hypochondriac?" and "Are you mad?", but there's no denying that these alternative therapies confer some inexplicable benefit on those who seek them out. The proof was in the parade of satisfied customers we saw exiting the nearby homeopathic pharmacy. I wonder if they've got anything for my scepticism?

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in