Celebrities Disfigured

One in 150 people in Britain lives with some kind of facial disfigurement. However, when we see someone who does not conform to our smooth-skinned beauty ideal, do we act normally, or do we stop and stare? This show follows last year's Celebrity Wheelchair Challenge and Celebrity Blind Man's Buff, in which the mildly famous temporarily lived with disabilities, and gives model Caprice Bourret and actor Craig Charles facial disfigurements (based on real-life cases) for 48 hours.

Caprice is used to being gawped at in the street, but finds the public's reactions unnervingly different when she is wearing a "port wine stain" birthmark. "They weren't staring at me in awe," she says. "They were staring at me because I'm different." Craig, meanwhile, is made up to look like a third-degree burns victim, and finds it difficult to engage the public in conversation.

Mind you, the method he uses to do this - conducting a survey - is perhaps not a fair reflection on public attitudes. Let's face it, if someone with a clipboard tries to ask us questions in the street, it doesn't really matter what they look like, does it? We're not stopping.

Whether this show educates us about how not to patronise or offend those with facial disfigurements is debatable, as it is mainly about Craig and Caprice's reactions to their temporary make-up. However, it also includes testimonies from those with real burns and birthmarks, so it does provide a lesson in how not to judge a book by its cover.