John Davidson

Twelve-year-old Rory Brown has Tourette Syndrome. After recently moving to secondary school his physical and verbal outbursts have exploded. In 1988 John Davidson featured in the BBC documentary ‘John’s Not Mad’. Determined that no other child should go through the horrific experience he had as a child, he’s taken Rory under his wing. Rory also has help from Greg Storey. In 2002, aged eight, Greg took part in the ‘The Boy Can’t Help It’ - a follow up film to ‘John’s Not Mad’. As a boy Greg invented a complex language as a way of communicating with his Tourettes. Now aged 23, he believes it can be adapted to help speed up computers. Tourettes: Teenage Tics is an intimate and revealing documentary that over time captures the challenges and triumphs in John and Greg’s lives and introduces the audience to Rory, a boy at the very beginning of his journey with Tourette Syndrome.

2009 - In 1988, teenager John Davidson featured in a BBC documentary about Tourettes. At that time, few people had even heard of Tourettes Syndrome, let alone knew anything about the neurological condition which, at its worst, causes violent body movements and outbursts of swearing. John was 16, and trying to come to terms with a frightening world where his language and behaviour was a constant form of offence to everyone around him. In 2002, he took part in a follow-up film alongside 8-year-old Greg Storey, who had recently been diagnosed with Tourettes. Now, seven years on, this film revisits both John (aged 37) and Greg (aged 15), and sees how their worlds have changed. Greg is now the same age as John was when he first took part in a documentary. How does Greg's experience of being a teenager with Tourettes compare to John's, and how does John's life continue to change?

Documentary in which Keith Allen teams up with a group of young Tourette's Syndrome sufferers and takes them on a trip to the French hospital where the condition was first diagnosed to find out more about it. First, though, there is the matter of getting through customs on a decrepit red double decker with a gang of kids shouting 'Al Queda' and 'I've Got A Bomb'.

A documentary about Tourettes sufferer John Davidson. This is a follow-up to the 1989 TV documentary John's Not Mad focusing on his present circumstances as an adult with Tourettes and the impact the earlier documentary had on his life. The film also follows an 8 year old who has been diagnosed with Tourettes.

John's Not Mad is a QED documentary made by the BBC in 1989. It was ranked, in a British public poll, as one of the 50 Greatest Documentaries. The film shadows John Davidson, a 15-year-old from Galashiels in Scotland, who had severe Tourette syndrome. John's life was explored in terms of his family and the close-knit community around him, and how they all coped with a misunderstood condition.