Channel 4 has announced a new experimental documentary exploring whether members of the British public can be swayed by Nazi-era ideas about disability as a "complex, emotional and often harrowing film".
The Experiment, airing tonight (21 October) at 10pm on Channel 4, is fronted by actor and writer Mat Fraser and presenter and disability rights activist Sophie Morgan. It uses a carefully constructed social experiment to ask whether cruelty can be mistaken for care when it is dressed up in the language of progress.
At the heart of the film is SegriLife House, a residential facility presented as a radical new model of supported living, complete with professional branding, corporate messaging and glossy promotional materials. It appears to offer a compassionate, cost-effective answer to the expense of helping disabled adults live and work independently. The catch is that SegriLife is not real.
Disabled and neurodivergent actors play the residents, with behind-the-scenes guidance from Access All Areas and the Graeae Theatre Company. Members of the public are invited to meet them and tour the facilities, where routines are built around community, independence and wellbeing. The ideas underpinning SegriLife, however, are drawn from the Nazi regime's segregation, devaluing and systematic extermination of disabled people.
Fraser and Morgan travel to Hartheim Castle in Austria, one of six killing centres used in the Nazis' Aktion T4 programme. The site is now a memorial and learning centre.
Drawing on real Nazi propaganda and the language used to justify forced sterilisation and extermination, the documentary examines how such ideas can be repackaged to seem acceptable. As the public explores SegriLife, every interaction is filmed and visitors are asked for their views, while Fraser and Morgan watch from backstage.
The film arrives amid growing concern from campaigners about hostile attitudes towards disabled people, at a time when public debate often frames disability around welfare spending and social care costs. With a new budget looming, The Experiment considers how language around productivity, dependency and public cost can shape the value placed on disabled people's lives.
In a joint statement, Morgan and Fraser said: "It was important for us to finally bring the catastrophic history of Aktion T4 and the Nazis' persecution of disabled people to our television screens, but more importantly we wanted to test whether the British public could be persuaded by similar propaganda today, to believe that disabled people are disposable, or less deserving of a place in society."
They added: "These are extremely disturbing times for our community, with disability rights under threat in the UK and around the world. It is reminiscent of a time many of us would rather forget, but this programme shows that the chances of repeating the past are far higher than we think. Peering behind the veil of the public perception of disability isn't for the faint-hearted, but this is essential viewing."
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Nick Llewellyn, co-CEO and artistic director of Access All Areas, said the organisation's associate artists "jumped at the chance to perform in The Experiment using their skills in immersive theatre to shine a light on the general public's current perception of disability", calling it "a necessary reminder of how the current rhetoric around disability has connections to a much darker history".
Emily Shields and Shaminder Nahal, commissioning editor and head of specialist factual at Channel 4, commented: "Only on Channel 4 would you see a programme like this, asking such challenging questions about how disabled people are viewed, the cost of supporting independent living, and ultimately who we are as a society." They praised the "complex, emotional and often harrowing film" made with Fraser, Morgan, the Graeae Theatre Company, Access All Areas Productions and producers Kalel Productions.
Nick Parnes, chief executive of Kalel Productions, added that the team were "incredibly proud" of the "compelling, sad, and shocking" film and hoped it would get "people talking".
The Experiment airs on Wednesday 21 October at 10pm on Channel 4.
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