Me and the Voice in My Head, review: Joe Tracini finds humour in the darkest of places
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We all have a little voice in the back of our heads, don’t we? For me it’s the voice that tells me when I start writing that my opinion sucks, no one cares what I write and why didn’t I ever learn how to properly use a semicolon? Self doubt is a devil that can creep up on all of us.
If we’re lucky we’re able to tuck it away in a corner. But actor and comedian Joe Tracini isn’t so lucky. He doesn’t have a little voice nagging away at him, but a great big boomer of a doppelganger called Mick, who can pop up at any moment and prick any bubble of self confidence he might muster.
Award-winning child magician, son of Joe Pasquale and former Hollyoaks regular – that’s quite the CV – Tracini has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, a condition it’s estimated two per cent of us may experience. For him, as became clear as we journeyed through Me and the Voice In My Head (Channel 4), BPD means forever living on the brink of suicide because feelings of worthlessness constantly threaten to overwhelm him.
It’s all too easy to go into documentaries dealing with mental-health issues anticipating a gruelling trudge through despair and misery. But in Me and the Voice In My Head, the engaging if unsettlingly twitchy Tracini turned that notion upside down.
Without ever trivialising the enormous impact BPD has had on his life, this brave look at his experiences opened a humorous window into a life blighted by a Mick who is constantly taking the mick. Sat side by side on the settee, Joe and Joe-as-Mick ping-ponged barbs at each other like a comedy double-act, searingly funny but with a dark undertow. Channel 4 should give them a series.
Was Tracini’s lonely childhood the root of this evil? Could therapy ease his burden? There were no clear answers here, but the uplifting message was that, perhaps, BPD was something you could learn to live with rather than inevitably kill you.
Dancing delicately on the borderline between comedy and tragedy, Me and the Voice In My Head pulled off the unlikely trick – come on, Joe was a child magician – of being simultaneously entertaining, informative and surprisingly moving. That’s a lot of rabbits to pull out of one head.
