Joe Wicks showed his vulnerable side in a fine example of public service broadcasting
It has always been obvious that there is something driving Joe Wicks. Not just the ambition common to successful people, but something more complicated. In Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood (BBC One), we learned that he can spend up to eight hours a day – “benders, proper marathons” – sending video messages and voice notes to fans who have contacted him, many of whom get in touch to share their personal problems.
Wicks became “the nation’s PE teacher” when he began daily YouTube workout sessions for families during the first lockdown. It was a great thing to do, but he admitted here that he felt “really low” when it ended. “I’m happiest when I’m helping people, on a small scale or a global scale,” he explained. After 18 weeks of PE with Joe he was exhausted, yet “a few weeks later I started to think, ‘I’m not valuable any more. I’m not useful. People don’t need me any more.’”
As the programme title suggested, Wicks had a difficult childhood which has shaped the person he is today. His father was a heroin addict, who would clean up only to relapse year after year. His mother suffered from mental health issues, including obsessive compulsive disorder. “I spent my childhood nervous and worried about things, and wanting to always make people around me happy. And I’m doing exactly the same now,” he said. Wicks came across as a lovely guy, but a vulnerable one.
Programmes in which celebrities explore their personal issues and confront their childhood are appearing more frequently. This one had something in common with Gemma Collins’s recent documentary for Channel 4, discussing her self-harm. It is public service broadcasting, because many people at home will recognise something of their own situation, and perhaps be encouraged to seek help or change their behaviour.
According to the programme, three million children in Britain have a parent with a mental health condition – equivalent to six pupils in every class. Wicks’s message was that adults should try to be open with their children. Of course, this is easier said than done; Wicks has a good relationship with both parents but only now is he discussing his childhood with them, at a distance of many years.
