The Experiment review – easily the most disturbing thing on TV

As members of the public tour a fake ‘residential home’ for disabled people riddled with Nazi ideology, you desperately hope someone will speak up. Prepare for the most excruciating viewing of your life I have never had to pause a programme halfway through before to catch my breath.

That is until The Experiment – Channel 4’s highly controversial social exercise designed to find out “how susceptible the British public are” to Nazi ideology about disabled people. This is a show so disturbing, timely and surreal that within 90 seconds of viewing it alone, I am looking around for confirmation from an empty room that any of this is happening. We start with a clip of Hitler. Against a backdrop of growing anti-benefits and ableist rhetoric,…