Karl Deeter and Larissa Nolan talk Tourette’s, OCD and the BBC

Larissa Nolan, who you may know from previous episodes of the show, got in touch the other day about a story that she really wanted to talk about, and she wanted Karl Deeter , another friend of the show, to join the conversation too.

The story was about an incident that happened at the recent BAFTA awards on the BBC, where an actor with Tourette’s syndrome, whose life story inspired the award winning film ‘I Swear’, shouted out the N-word when black actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage to present an award. Naturally this caused a major stir - but the reaction was actually quite nuanced, with some very different viewpoints emerging.

So Larissa, who has OCD, and Karl Deeter, who has Tourette’s, joined me to get into this issue. We chat about what it’s like to live with Tourette’s and OCD and how both conditions are actually quite similar in some ways. They also give a great explainer about this BAFTA’s story and the nuanced outcry it has caused, and they share their own opinions about it.

Produced by Patrick Haughey, AudioBrand