Since he first began playing the piano at the age of three, Alex Stobbs has shown a remarkable gift for music. By the time he was eight years of age, he was touring Europe as a chorister. At 13, he won a music scholarship to Eton, a school his parents could never have hoped to afford. Today Alex is 16, astonishing teachers and pupils with his brilliance as an organist, pianist, chorister, composer and conductor. By any account, a sparkling future lies ahead of him. Except Alex does not have a sparkling future. He has cystic fibrosis, a genetically-inherited disease which is slowly destroying his digestive system and his lungs. Alex has a particularly virulent form of cystic fibrosis. Over the years, the disease has attacked his bones and left him partially deaf, especially distressing for a musician. There is no cure. Without the massive cocktail of drugs pumped into his bloodstream day and night, Alex would not be alive today. But neither the drugs nor the disease will stop Alex from now taking on the greatest musical challenge of his life: to conduct a performance of Bachs epic choral work, the Magnificat, before an audience of several hundred people in the glorious setting of Eton's 15th century chapel. As Alex explains, "Music makes me forget about where I am or what state I am in or what's happening to my lungs. Music is my hope. It's everything."
A Boy Called Alex follows Alex over three extraordinary months as he sets out to achieve his goal. Filmed with almost unprecedented access to Eton, a school which rarely allows cameras inside its gates, the documentary charts the highs and lows of rehearsals as Alex pummels the schools orchestra into shape, meeting his teachers, his friends, his doctors and his family along the way. The result is an intimate, moving and sometimes very funny insight into his world at home, hospital and school. Twice during the filming Alex nearly died. Each time he pulled himself out of his hospital bed to continue doing what he loved best - making music. What emerges is the portrait of a boy who, despite every obstacle thrown in his way, simply refuses to give up. Feisty, funny, irreverent and without a shred of self-pity, Alex has set himself a terrifically difficult task. But he is absolutely determined to achieve it, and nothing not even his lungs will get in his way. A Boy Called Alex is directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Stephen Walker, whose previous Channel 4 film Young@Heart - about an American chorus of rock n roll pensioners - won the Audience Award at the LA Film Festival and will be released theatrically in the USA by Fox in Spring 2008.
This episode airs at 9pm on Thursday 24th January.