BBC2 tonight airs a powerful doc about a musician who suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage and survived

Clemency Burton-Hill in My Brain: After the Rupture

(Image credit: BBC)

BBC Two tonight is showing My Brain: After the Rupture, about BBC broadcaster and musician Clemency Burton-Hill, who suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage in January 2020.

The powerful documentary tells the story of how, against the odds, she survived, and after surgery that involved removing half her skull, she emerged slowly from a 17-day coma. She was only 38 when it happened.

Clemency Burton-Hill playing her violin in My Brain: After the Rupture — Clemmie has relearnt to play the violin (Image credit: BBC)

Unable to speak or walk, the mother of two faced having to completely rebuild her life. We follow her journey back into the world, set across New York and London.

In January this year, five years after her brain injury, she wrote a moving post on Instagram saying: "Yet there are no words that can be wrought (wrung?!) to convey the unlikely fact that I - still - am. Five years. All this borrowed time of being able to kiss my husband good morning; make coffee as I struggle with my Wordle.

"Of being able to see my sons playing football, video games, their violins; hear them singing, laughing. Five more years of being able to cuddle them; watch them sleep, argue with them about their terrible taste in pop music. Now I can even ask them to empty the dishwasher (futile) or tidy their room, their strewn hoodies, the Lego and books that pile up. (Equally futile.) What a miracle that is."

Clemency Burton-Hill in water in My Brain: After the Rupture — Clemency Burton-Hill (Image credit: BBC)

The film, which will also be available on BBC iPlayer, includes moving videos of her painful and at times frustrating recovery, as Clemmie relearns how to play her beloved violin. She also writes a book, records a podcast and comes to terms with the loss of her previous identity.

Talking about the documentary, she told The Guardian: "It felt really important that none of this was sugar-coated. Yes, what happened to me was extraordinarily rare and random and weird and wild, and here’s where all the platitudes and cliches come out, but we just don’t know how long we've got. We don't know what is going to happen in five years or five minutes."

The 100-minute documentary is an Arena film directed by Ursula Macfarlane.

My Brain: After the Rupture airs on BBC Two on Friday, March 28 at 9 pm and is available on BBC iPlayer (see our TV guide for full listings).