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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Lucy Mangan

The Schoolgirl Terrorist? review – by the end of this documentary you feel like you have sat through a nightmare

Manipulated … a photo of teenager Rhianan Rudd, wearing a striped dressing gown
Manipulated … Rhianan Rudd. Photograph: Emily Carter

The Schoolgirl Terrorist? contains its answer within its very question. Titles are designed to catch your attention. Normally they contain the baldest, most extreme possible summary suggestion of what you are about to see that the makers think they can get away with. A question mark introduces the idea of interrogation, of nuance, of doubt from the off – all things commissioners believe will put people off.

The exception is when the subject is so clearly an abominable, Kafkaesque tale of mismanagement and incompetence visited upon ordinary people. To pretend otherwise even for a titular moment would be to undermine your programme’s integrity from the start.

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