Five
All-American teenagers Abby and Brittany Hensel are the world’s only surviving pair of dicephalic conjoined twins. Their two bodies are almost entirely joined, sharing arms, legs and a torso, and their two separate spines join at the pelvis.
To the sixteen year old twins, teenage milestones like taking their driving test are just normal aspects of everyday life, but the medical profession is baffled by what they have achieved.
For The Twins Who Share a Body, which formed part of Five’s Extraordinary People strand, True North teamed up with Figure 8 films, a US company that’s worked with the Hensel family since the girls were very young.
Abby and Brittany are two separate girls, with separate opinions, personalities and passions. The film follows Abby and Brittney as they come of age. In the run up to their sixteenth birthday, we see them acting like teenagers the world over – arguing with their parents, playing up at school and hanging out with their friends.
The twins each control a separate side of their body and don’t feel pain or sensation on the other side, but they work in incredible harmony to walk, run, play the piano, shoot basketball and so on. They have adapted to cope with their physical condition, and take new everyday challenges – like learning to drive – with ease.
The Twins Who Share a Body gained over three million viewers for Five when it was first transmitted, making it the channel’s second-highest-rated factual programme ever.
A True North and Figure 8 Films co-production