My Dead Body
2022
Channel 4
Documentary
My Dead Body is Toni Crews’ story. Discovering her cancer was terminal at 29, Toni agreed to donate her body to medical science, consenting for it to be on public display. Narrated by her own words, the film follows Professor Claire Smith, Head of Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and her team as they dissect Toni’s body, charting the course of the disease from initial diagnosis to Toni’s death four years later.
"The programme was not for the fainthearted. Most of us have never seen a dead body, certainly not like this. [Toni] Crews looked unrecognisable from the photographs we saw of her, and really looked very unlike a living person, her body waxy and swollen. With no fanfare, the professor of anatomy, Claire Smith, began cutting into her skull. The filming was done with restraint – it was less graphic than footage of hospital operations, for example, which are commonplace on television – and we were able to follow different procedures, such as the slicing of Crews’s brain and the removal of her eye socket. Crews’s donation was an incredible, selfless gift. It also clearly had a profound impact on the medical professionals, some of whom were shown in tears after the body was taken away for the final time. It was a remarkable piece of television, and Crews has left a remarkable legacy."
Anita Singh, Telegraph — 5 Stars
“It was graphic, grisly, vital TV that should have been given longer than 50 minutes. I am not a squeamish person, but that cracking noise when the top half of her skull was pulled off was gruesome; even the medical students gasped. But it was an important reminder of the gift this young woman had given to science. I was glad her body had a custodian as caring as Professor Claire Smith. I kept thinking of Toni’s parents, watching and hearing all of this. It is what she wanted, yes, but she was still their baby. They should be very, very proud of her.”
Carol Midgley, The Times — 4 stars
“An unprecedented piece of television. Toni’s embalmed cadaver was treated with dignity but the audience of students gave a shocked gasp as the lid of her skull, sawn through, was removed with a crack. Many of them, like the great majority of viewers, could have never seen such a thing before. It made intensely difficult viewing and I had to keep reminding myself of two things: that Toni wanted this and that she had endured cancer with such bravery that to look away would be disrespectful as well as cowardly.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail — 5 stars
“In the end, My Dead Body is a documentary about all kinds of courage. The courage to face terrible illness (Toni’s grandmother recalls seeing her face when she got back from the hospital and knew she must have received news that it was terminal – “but by the time she got to the back garden and the children, she was fine”); the courage to leave someone you have feared for a decade; the courage of a parent to go on after the very worst thing that can happen has happened; the courage to accede to a child’s wishes even when you can hardly bear to think about what that means. You don’t have to be in the lecture hall with Smith and her students to feel you have been enlarged and educated by Toni’s presence.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian — 4 stars
"The programme was not for the fainthearted. Most of us have never seen a dead body, certainly not like this. [Toni] Crews looked unrecognisable from the photographs we saw of her, and really looked very unlike a living person, her body waxy and swollen. With no fanfare, the professor of anatomy, Claire Smith, began cutting into her skull. The filming was done with restraint – it was less graphic than footage of hospital operations, for example, which are commonplace on television – and we were able to follow different procedures, such as the slicing of Crews’s brain and the removal of her eye socket. Crews’s donation was an incredible, selfless gift. It also clearly had a profound impact on the medical professionals, some of whom were shown in tears after the body was taken away for the final time. It was a remarkable piece of television, and Crews has left a remarkable legacy."
Anita Singh, Telegraph — 5 Stars
“It was graphic, grisly, vital TV that should have been given longer than 50 minutes. I am not a squeamish person, but that cracking noise when the top half of her skull was pulled off was gruesome; even the medical students gasped. But it was an important reminder of the gift this young woman had given to science. I was glad her body had a custodian as caring as Professor Claire Smith. I kept thinking of Toni’s parents, watching and hearing all of this. It is what she wanted, yes, but she was still their baby. They should be very, very proud of her.”
Carol Midgley, The Times — 4 stars
“An unprecedented piece of television. Toni’s embalmed cadaver was treated with dignity but the audience of students gave a shocked gasp as the lid of her skull, sawn through, was removed with a crack. Many of them, like the great majority of viewers, could have never seen such a thing before. It made intensely difficult viewing and I had to keep reminding myself of two things: that Toni wanted this and that she had endured cancer with such bravery that to look away would be disrespectful as well as cowardly.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail — 5 stars
“In the end, My Dead Body is a documentary about all kinds of courage. The courage to face terrible illness (Toni’s grandmother recalls seeing her face when she got back from the hospital and knew she must have received news that it was terminal – “but by the time she got to the back garden and the children, she was fine”); the courage to leave someone you have feared for a decade; the courage of a parent to go on after the very worst thing that can happen has happened; the courage to accede to a child’s wishes even when you can hardly bear to think about what that means. You don’t have to be in the lecture hall with Smith and her students to feel you have been enlarged and educated by Toni’s presence.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian — 4 stars
