The Experiment review – easily the most disturbing thing on TV

The Experiment is a highly controversial social exercise designed to find out how susceptible the British public are to Nazi ideology about disabled people. The show features disabled actors portraying residents in Segrilife, a residential home that members of the public are invited to tour, unaware of the experiment's true nature.

Presenters Mat Fraser and Sophie Morgan, who fear the disabled community are being framed as a financial burden due to growing anti-benefits and ableist rhetoric, watch events unfold on monitors in another room. The experiment is set against a backdrop of rising rhetoric questioning the value of disabled people in society.

Segregated Institution

The tour group is shown the workshop, where disabled actors are placing beads on string to earn an allowance. One character named Sonia remarks, I used to be in marketing. I don't know why I'm in this room now, threading monotonously in her wheelchair. The group then tours a dormitory called the nest, with threadbare beds lined up in a row and cameras on the walls for monitoring.

Walls display posters repackaging 1930s fascist concepts with contemporary messaging, including the price tag of a disabled person's care package next to their photo, with mantras like Normal life isn't for everyone. A woman in the tour group approvingly comments, It's safe. That's what the people we've just met need.

Disturbing Reactions

The most disturbing moment comes when three members of the public and a manager (an actor) discuss the cost of a young disabled woman as she sits silently in the same room, with savings displayed on an iPad. Most participants accept the segregation as rational, with some justifying it as a burden on taxpayers or for the disabled person's own benefit.

One woman concludes it's incredible that disabled people are looked after and kept occupied. The documentary reveals how prejudice toward disabled people is often not violent but stems from a well-meaning belief that disabled people are not quite like other people. Not as complex. More infantile. Of less value.

Historical Parallels

Between scenes, the documentary examines Aktion T4, the Nazi program to systematically segregate and murder disabled people. Fraser and Morgan visit Hartheim Castle in Austria, one of six facilities where tens of thousands of mercy killings occurred in gas chambers from 1939. Fraser appears visibly distressed during these segments.

The program challenges the notion that fascism and democratic ideas are always neatly defined, suggesting that beliefs from 80 years ago may relate to modern rhetoric. At the end, participants discover the truth and express having learned something, but the lingering impression is how easily prejudice was accepted.

As Morgan covers her eyes in distress, the documentary concludes that acknowledging these attitudes is the only way to begin ridding society of them. None of us should look away, the program suggests, in a stark reminder of how quickly prejudice can be normalized.