See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy CHRISTOPHER STEVENS, TV CRITIC Published: 23:45 BST, 1 June 2026 | Updated: 23:45 BST, 1 June 2026
Emma Barnett: Fighting Endometriosis (BBC2)Rating: Five out of five stars Marilyn Monroe would have been 100 years old yesterday. Instead, she’s eternal, blowing kisses and beaming at us from the height of a fame that never wanes.But Emma Barnett showed us Marilyn from a different perspective in Fighting Endometriosis. Black-and-white clips of her waving from a window in a twinkle of flashbulbs were not included here to celebrate her centenary.The suppressed suffering behind that huge smile has always been evident, if we cared to look. Until now, I’d always believed the pain was psychological, inflicted by an awful childhood, sexual abuse and wretched marriages. Her wells of emotion are a large part of what made her such an affecting performer.This one-off documentary by Radio 4 Today presenter Barnett, about her own gruelling struggle since puberty with cycles of constant pain, suggested another explanation. The exhaustion in Marilyn’s eyes and her well-documented addiction to painkillers, including morphine and codeine, were the result of endometriosis.The hormonal condition, which involves cells similar to those in the womb growing in other parts of the pelvis, causing agonising ‘sores and lesions’ — and is linked with a higher risk of infertility — was largely a mystery to doctors until the past decade.Because the sores thicken and bleed every month, the condition has long been dismissed, even by the women worst affected, as an extreme form of period pain — or misdiagnosed as everything from appendicitis to irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease.Barnett admitted she’d barely heard of the illness when she was first diagnosed, ten years ago. It’s probable that for many viewers, this programme will be like a light going on in a pitch-black room. Emma Barnett showed us Marilyn from a different perspective in Fighting Endometriosis Emma interviews Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care following the renewed Women's Health Care StrategyShe described the symptoms eloquently: ‘Like having a drill inside my stomach that is going down and into my organs.’Although it is as common among women as asthma, there is no treatment other than surgery, which involves cutting away the inflamed tissue or, in the most dire cases, a full hysterectomy.Barnett herself, who was still filming for the programme until last month, while suffering through a particularly bad bout, is considering that operation. She counts herself fortunate, she says, to have been able to have two children via IVF. Poker game of the night: Honesty is the best policy — true or false? The £83,700 prize pot in Nobody’s Fool (ITV1) went not to the smartest quizzer but to the player who was best at lying with a straight face. TV game shows are no place for nice guys any more. Others she spoke to did not have that consolation. One woman, Chloe, took the desperate step of paying for private treatment in Dubai, because the NHS was unable to offer surgery — even though the pain was making her feel suicidal.She is still in pain and resigned to never being a mother. ‘I just want everything out,’ she said through tears. ‘I’m at the point now where I would not beable to look after a child. It wouldn’t be fair.’Barnett boiled with anger at the failure of doctors to understand what so many women have to endure.She let Labour’s Wes Streeting, health secretary at the time, have it with both barrels. His ears were probably still ringing when he quit the Cabinet.
