Paxman: Putting Up with Parkinson’s review: The way he deals with his slow physical deterioration is, in its own grumpy way, inspiring

In this one-off special, the broadcaster speaks to experts and other high-profile people about living with Parkinson’s

Paxman in ITV’s ‘Putting Up with Parkinson’s’ (Livewire Pictures Limited)

The most striking thing about Parkinson’s Disease, as we learn in Jeremy Paxman’s Paxman: Putting up with Parkinson’s (ITV), is the way that it just creeps up and mugs people. In this rather touching and very candid account of his life since he was formally diagnosed with it 18 months ago, Paxman explains that he only knew he had the condition after he’d been admitted to hospital when he slipped over on some ice and suffered some cuts to his face.

“I was in a real mess in A&E, and the doctor said, ‘I think you’ve got Parkinson’s.’ And it turned out he’d been watching University Challenge and he’d noticed my face had acquired what’s known as the ‘Parkinson’s mask’. I wasn’t as effusive and ebullient as normal. I had no idea.”

And so the tests were done, and at 72 years of age, Paxman’s life changed for ever. But, as Paxman puts it: “I’m not living with it, I’m putting up with it” – hence the title of the documentary. It’s part of how this high-achieving, brilliant, lovely man offsets what he calls the “shame of Parkinson’s” – the embarrassment, at the shakes and the stumbles, that drives too many into isolation. He refuses to succumb to the “poor little me syndrome”. As you’d expect.

The way Paxman puts up with his slow physical deterioration is, in its own grumpy way, inspiring. The bouffant hair is white now; the face fuller, but also slower to react, just as the doc noted. He walks carefully, with the aid of a stick, and he’s on some antidepressants, which work well and leave him in a semi-permanent state of “wry amusement”.

Still, Paxman is mostly his old crotchety self. He refuses to stop meeting friends for a drink; he takes his pet spaniel out as usual, even though stooping to scoop the poops is more awkward now; and he’s only just giving up his broadcasting. As a writer and journalist of rare calibre, he can’t help but be inquisitive about this still-mysterious disease, and going on this slightly unsteady journey of discovery about it suits him very well. Just like when he was in the Newsnight chair, he asks all the right questions – though he’s less aggressive towards doctors and medical researchers than he was, famously, with the likes of Michael Howard.

In this one-off, 60-minute special, Paxman sets off to meet some remarkable people. A lady in Scotland can “smell” Parkinson’s on someone even before it’s been diagnosed – Paxman is moderately stinky on her Parkinson’s smell feast. When scientists tested out Joy Milne’s improbable gift, they found that she only “failed” to detect the disease in one person who turned out to have it but had not yet been diagnosed. They’re now trying to convert her olfactory talent into a standardised test, so she doesn’t have to sniff the entire population.

Paxo also has a jolly time learning to play bowls at a group for “sufferers” – ­if that’s the right word – and at a therapy dance class run by the English National Ballet that genuinely helps to ameliorate the physical symptoms. He meets experts who are at the leading edge of research, including some dopamine and surgical specialists, and watches as a brain is sliced up, almost as if in a butcher’s shop, to better understand what’s been happening with his basal ganglia – which does sound like the answer to a University Challenge question.

There’s a touching scene with Jane Asher, president of Parkinson’s UK, when Jeremy signs his own brain over to be used in medical research after he’s dead. He metaphorically presents it to her by signing a standard disclaimer, and she accepts Paxo’s grey matter with cheery pleasure, like a cake baked to one of her own recipes for the charity bring-and-buy sale. The great man’s formidable organ is now going to be probed, pickled and dissected, rather like one of his political victims. It’s a funny old world.

Paxman’s point is that Parkinson’s is certainly cruel and often misunderstood, but it doesn’t mean you need to feel victimised or pitied. There is no cure, but there are treatments, and knowledge is increasing. It’s now thought to be a disease of ageing and changes in the metabolism, rather than neurological in cause. There’s hope, though Paxman seems unwilling to use the word. 

Two prominent broadcasters and colleagues of Paxman have “come out” with the condition in recent times – the former BBC journalists Mark Mardell and Rory Cellan-Jones – and many of our national treasures have had Parkinson’s: John Betjeman, Terry-Thomas, Billy Connolly and Ozzy Osbourne. Paxman goes to meet Osbourne’s wife, Sharon, to talk it through – we don’t get to see the Black Sabbath star, and, as honest as she can be, she says that “life just stops”.

Parkinson’s is uncommon – about one in 37 people in the UK will develop it – but it’s not rare, and we should all understand that it doesn’t “cancel” a human being. In a few weeks, Paxman will record his last edition of University Challenge, which he’s sad about, but he shouldn’t be allowed to fade from our screens. He’s just putting up with it, and if he can, so can the rest of us.