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Seriously...

The Bald Truth

Seriously...

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.1885 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2018

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For thousands of years, bald men have been the subject of ridicule. As a result they've felt ashamed and have resorted to desperate measures to hide their condition. During the decades when hair style was a cultural battleground between youth and the establishment, the balding man was at the bottom of the heap. No prime minister since Clement Attlee has been bald. But increasingly, bald men are coming out of the closet and shaving their heads - and some women too. Research shows that bald men are perceived as less attractive but more dominant. Now that we are more relaxed about hair style, and more willing to tolerate tonsorial diversity, are bald men finally able to shed the stigma? And could the comb-over finally make a come back? Ian Marchant, who has shaved his head since the early 1980s, investigates.

Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.

0:05.0

The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.

0:09.0

And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.

0:12.0

The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.

0:12.5

The IRA inmates who found a way.

0:14.5

I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path

0:19.5

through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.

0:25.0

The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.

0:28.5

Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.

0:34.0

This is the BBC.

0:39.0

Hi, I'm Riana Dylan and welcome to the podcast where we bring you seriously

0:46.3

interesting stories told a little sideways. To begin with it started very

0:52.1

slowly I mean the patch just started to fall out gradually and then after about a year or so, then it started to hurry up a bit and within like five months it got to such a state I just shaved the rest of it off.

1:07.0

How do you feel about hair loss?

1:10.0

Now I like being bald. I don't know what I do if my hair grew back. I've began to really like it.

1:16.0

I've had compliments over it.

1:18.0

Some people have little to no choice about it. For others, it's a statement.

1:23.0

I had a cut last week.

1:25.0

Grew a bit so long because I didn't cut again.

1:28.0

It would not sure.

1:30.0

People notice you.

1:32.0

Yeah.

...

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