Entertainment · TV & Streaming · 3 hrs ago
Channel 4 documentary tests public response to Nazi-inspired disability policies
Channel 4’s documentary The Experiment tests how the public responds to Nazi-inspired policies presented as a modern approach to disability support.
People in Britain are invited to tour SegriLife House, a fake residential home they believe is real.
Its rules draw on Nazi-era persecution of disabled people, but visitors are not told this during the tours.
Disabled and neurodivergent actors play the home’s residents, while hosts Mat Fraser and Sophie Morgan observe from behind the scenes.
The programme examines how extremist ideas can be repackaged to seem acceptable or progressive.
It also visits Hartheim Castle and Museum in Austria, a former Nazi killing centre, to tell the history of murdered disabled people.
The documentary aims to highlight the danger of repeating this history, amid the presenters’ concern that disability rights are under threat.
The programme is scheduled to air on Channel 4 tonight.
Channel 4’s documentary The Experiment tests whether members of the British public would object to a fake residential facility operating under Nazi-inspired policies toward disabled people.
Visitors to the fictional SegriLife House are told it offers a radical model of supported living, while disabled and neurodivergent actors portray its residents.
The visitors are not told that the facility’s protocols draw on Nazi-era treatment of disabled people.
Actor Mat Fraser and disability rights activist Sophie Morgan host the programme and observe participants’ reactions.
The documentary also examines the history of Aktion T4 and the persecution and murder of disabled people under the Nazi regime.
- Who
- Channel 4, with hosts Mat Fraser and Sophie Morgan, and members of the British public taking part.
- What
- The Experiment tests public responses to a fictional residential facility using Nazi-inspired policies toward disabled people.
- When
- The documentary was due to air on 20 October 2026.
- Where
- The experiment takes place at the fictional SegriLife House; the hosts also visit Hartheim Castle and Museum in Austria.
- Why
- The programme explores whether Nazi-inspired ideas can be repackaged as acceptable modern solutions and whether the public would object.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Nazi Germany persecuted disabled people, including through segregation, forced sterilisation and murder.
Channel 4’s The Experiment was due to air.
Members of the public toured the fake SegriLife House, while disabled and neurodivergent actors played residents.
Fraser and Morgan visited Hartheim Castle and Museum in Austria.
- Programme
- The Experiment
- Broadcaster
- Channel 4
- Hosts
- Mat Fraser and Sophie Morgan
- Fictional facility
- SegriLife House
- Historical programme
- Aktion T4
- Museum visited
- Hartheim Castle and Museum, Austria
What people are saying
Drawing on Nazi propaganda and the real ideas and language used to justify the systematic segregation, forced sterilisation and extermination of disabled people in Nazi-era Germany, The Experiment explores how such dangerous ideas can be repackaged and made to appear acceptable
It was important for us to finally bring the catastrophic history of Aktion T4 and the Nazis’ persecution of disabled people to our television screens, but more importantly we wanted to test whether the British public could be persuaded by similar propaganda today – to believe that disabled people are disposable, or less deserving of a place in society