Is University Really Worth It?; Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile Hoax

“Geoff Norcott lightens the mood with the occasional ‘students, eh?’ routine, but this is bleak stuff, because it isn’t just about the state of universities in the UK, but the state of Britain as a whole. Look at any sector and you’ll see the same cautionary tale: this is what happens when the focus is on profit over people.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“There was a bit too much going on here for a one-hour documentary, but it was difficult to argue with Norcott’s conclusions: that the cost of university has gone up while the value has gone down, and that teenagers need to think through the pros and cons more clearly than the older generations ever did.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Norcott, a former teacher, was jolly company, cracking gags although coming over very serious when confronted with a medical student who had only £10 a week to spend on food.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“University vice-chancellors must have been fearing for their six-figure salaries because for most of the programme, modern university life looked pretty awful. If I was thinking about university as I watched this, I’d rip up my application and become a plumber instead.”
Roland White, Daily Mail

“Accused is a study in many things: the inadequacy of our police and the dangerous lag between the laws we have and the laws we need in this blisteringly fast-moving world; the fathomless irrationality of which some humans are capable; what it is hard not to call the simple evil of others, and the courage some find to fight it. It is above all a study in why the truth matters, why facts must be disinterred, stated and cleaved to.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Emily Turner’s excellent documentary stated that it used actors to lip-sync the words of the mothers because, a decade on, their identities still need to be protected. It did give things a slight AI feel, but their timing was good and after a while you almost forgot they were acting.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The story told in Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile Hoax is utterly mad. There is a wider issue here: the alarming willingness to believe in conspiracy theories, and the speed with which lies can spread online.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph