unvaccinated
Valuation: 
The Southbank Show
Valuation: 
Like a bank robber in a heist movie, Professor Hannah Fry heaves two bulging sacks onto a table. The gang look expectant as they open a bag and shower them with . . . Gummy bear.
Prof. Hannah is a bean counter in the truest sense of the word. She is a statistician and her life’s mission is to help us understand numbers.
Unvaccinated (BBC2) saw her rally seven people who insist they don’t get the Covid vaccine to get them to change their minds using the power of numbers. But human beans are not gummy bears. We’re all different colors, it’s true, and some are cuter than others. That’s where the similarities end.
Hannah had no hope of convincing people like conspiracy theorist Luca or concerned Naomi, who desperately wanted to be a mother. Your fears don’t have to be rational because they are rooted in emotions.
Prof. Hannah is a bean counter in the truest sense of the word. She is a statistician and her life’s mission is to help us understand numbers
Unvaccinated (BBC2) saw Hannah rally seven people who insist they don’t get the Covid vaccine to get them to change their minds using the power of numbers. But human beans are not gummy bears. We’re all different colors, it’s true, and some are cuter than others. That’s where the similarities end
What this show needed was not a statistician but a psychologist. There’s no point in bombarding people with facts and figures without addressing what’s behind them.
Nazarin, 21, believes the Covid vaccine will prompt her to have a stroke. “It scares me, it could happen to me,” she sobbed.
Most healthy young people cannot imagine being afflicted by a brain-damaging disease. The Prof hasn’t investigated why Nazarin was different, but there will be a reason – a deep, emotional reason.
Each anti-vaccination group at the table had their own urgent logic. Prescription drugs had made Vicky, 43, very ill. Ethan, 21, had a basic Freudian fear of impotence: “I want the guy to work,” he said. None of them wanted to hear condescending jelly bean explanations, like they were elementary school kids slow to grasp a lesson.
Prof. Hannah didn’t understand that. She loves to explain statistics in a colorful, playful way. It makes her happy. For them, numbers themselves are emotional. I’m sure it has been since she was a child, when her gift for mathematics might have garnered praise and affection from the people she loved most.
After all, facts are also important for the statistician because they evoke deep feelings. When debates got heated, the professor did a good job of keeping the angriest voices quiet.
But her reliance on a superior education sometimes came off as complacency. “What did we do so wrong when we talked about it?” She got angry. In other words, why can’t everyone just admit that she’s right?
My own feelings are uncomplicated and tomboy: I’d rather not die. A doctor told the group that 95 per cent of people who are now seriously ill with Covid and 100 per cent of those who do not survive are unvaccinated. That’s enough for me. I’ll be lining up for my fourth dose this fall.
When The South Bank Show (Sky Arts) returned, Melvyn Bragg deftly pared down the emotional roots of Frank Skinner’s (pictured during a comedy set) quest to perform comedy
Melvyn Bragg deftly pared down the emotional roots of Frank Skinner’s quest to perform comedy with the return of The South Bank Show (Sky Arts).
Frank choked as he recalled his father’s disappointment when he came home from school with a letter telling him he had been expelled from school. He also spoke about how his father had sparked a passion for football by telling young Frank there was no point in being a man if he didn’t love football. “It became an identity thing,” he said.
And he revealed that he prays every night: “There is no one I can speak to as openly as I can with God without worrying about offending him. He’s very forgiving, you know.’
The hour-long chat broke into Frank’s latest enthusiasm, his poetry podcast, and highlighted a beautiful verse by Black Country poet Liz Berry about pigeons called the Birmingham Roller. Frank saw himself in the pigeons. It’s all about the emotions.