A documentarian confronts a terrible disease that is far more common yet treatable than we realise in his challenging, passionate, informative, funny and moving film.

by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

There’s no getting round it, 1 in 2 is about cancer. More specifically, David Nicholas Wilkinson’s documentary is about the bowel variety, explaining that colorectal cancer is now the deadliest among those under fifty years of age in the United States. You ignore the facts of this deeply researched film at your peril. Of course, there are numerous reality TV-type programmes that guide us into the inner sanctums of hospitals dealing with unspeakable diseases, featuring breathless personnel from various medical institutions, all dowsed in melodramatic music. 1 in 2 is a more serious animal, intent in purpose, sometimes unsure of its own direction, probing a frighteningly common condition often disregarded by surgeons. Wilkinson has gathered an impressive array of talking heads, both professional and victim, who speak amazingly candidly to camera about this embarrassing sickness. There is plenty of data, even glimmers of hope, some well-drawn animated inserts and a little celebrity name-dropping to sugar-coat a growing problem.

What is different about this documentary is that Mr Wilkinson is both an articulate and passionate host and has himself been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He knows of what he speaks and is unafraid to drop his drawers (both metaphorically and literally) to expose a myopia and ignorance in parts of the NHS. Had the director been correctly diagnosed with his condition six years ago, when he had a colonoscopy that gave him the all-clear, the disease would not have advanced to stage 4. A second colonoscopy just four years later revealed the grim truth and our narrator was suddenly propelled on a frightening journey of discomfort and humiliation which he decided to record for the camera and for the future good of generations to come. Wilkinson brushes aside all traces of vanity (in his youth he was an exceptionally handsome young man) in the quest for what it means to be on the sharp end of chemotherapy.

The title refers to the fact that “nearly one in two people born in the UK since 1960 will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime.” If that’s not you, then it’ll be somebody close to you. However, the director’s main bugbear is that sections of the NHS refuse to take seriously the symptoms of those under the age of fifty. One interviewee, Milli Tanner, had thirteen doctors’ appointments and multiple tests and hospital visits before her bowel cancer was eventually confirmed. She was now 22-years-old – and at stage 3. No doubt in the interest of saving others, she talks frankly about the mortification of her bowel habits and wearing a stoma bag. She’s filmed in a nondescript auditorium, but you feel that she should be in a nightclub with her young friends.

Had Wilkinson’s disease been detected at the time of its actual emergence, the treatment would have cost the NHS somewhere between £20,000 to £30,000 – and he would have been assured of a cure. But because of the misdiagnosis, the cost ended up being around the £200,000 mark, and now there is no cure. Under these circumstances, our narrator presents a surprisingly sprightly figure, joking with the nurses and openly discussing his own faecal emissions (he’s even pictured on the loo, both in animation and live-action). There are perhaps one or two false endings, and even a post-credit sequence adding a note of levity. However, the fact remains that this is an unpretentious and self-effacing film that refuses to talk down to the viewer and Wilkinson himself is an engaging, empathetic and sympathetic compère. In the past, I have been critical of some of the director’s films, particularly of those features he had deigned to distribute, but this is by far his most absorbing, personal and important work, his magnum opus.

Featuring Michelle Amoah, Ms. Lisa Andrews-Dhapre, Dr David Burke, Edwina Forkin, Sada ‘Saday’ Hamilton, Daniel Hall, Dr Yasemin Hirst, Slaine Kelly, Laura Lee, Iain Macleod, Jonathan Margolis, Prof. Seamus Martin, Nicola McLean, Dr Ravindhi Murphy, Amaryllis Roberts, Stephen Rowley, Renee Shawcroft, Milli Tanner, Dale Vimalachandran.

Dir David Nicholas Wilkinson, Pro David Nicholas Wilkinson, Screenplay David Nicholas Wilkinson and Emlyn Price, Ph Don McVey and Nick Blair, Ed Laura Calzada and Jon Walker, Music Christopher Barnett, Sound Tudor Davies.

Guerilla Docs-Guerilla Films.
142 mins. UK. 2026. UK Rel: 13 November 2026. Cert. TBC. World Premiere at the Central Scotland Documentary Festival: 7 November 2026.

1 in 2

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