NCMH joins rock photographer in mental health films

Posted March 11th 2014

Last Chance Saloon, a series of short films created as a collaboration between charitable foundation the Wellcome Trust, music photographer Neil “Twink” Tinning and NCMH, has now been released online.

The series of short documentaries, follows Twink, formerly the official photographer for The Jam, on a year-long journey to understand mental illness while recording an album and performing live for the first time with his own band.

Twink, from Tyneside near Newcastle, published a never-before-seen collection of photos of the band in the book The Jam Unseen in 2007, which reached the Amazon top 25 sellers list on release.

The photographer speaks to a number of leading authorities in neuroscience and mental health research in the series, including NCMH director Professor Nick Craddock. Twink discusses his own bipolar disorder, and learns more about a range of other conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Alzheimer’s disease.

The Last Chance Saloon documentaries, several of which were filmed in Cardiff, are being released weekly as a series of 11 online episodes of around 10 minutes each.

Each episode will be available on the Wellcome Trust’s new Mosaic website, which is dedicated to explaining and exploring the science of life.