The brain manages to ‘edit’ the bit when the eyes slip sideways and translate the remainder into the same, still world that the rest of us live in. Incredibly however, those born with nystagmus do not see the world as constantly shaking. Many also struggle to spot the tiny visual clues we give in expressions, from a twinkle in the eye to a momentary frown. It also makes it hard to see a small, fast-moving object – such as a ball – as it whizzes past. It means the eyes have less time to focus on what is in front of them because they quickly slip sideways.Īnything more than a few feet away is rather blurry and detail is lost. The result is eyes that relentlessly move to and fro, or up and down and, in rare cases, round and round. Experts still don’t understand what triggers it.
Nystagmus affects one in 1,000 people in this country. ‘I’ve found that while everyone else is thinking about what the set looks like, I am thinking hold on, that joke did not work or that relationship between those two people is not where it should be, and that is all I am focusing on, which is a useful skill.’ I want to talk about the feel of the show. When I am editing a TV programme, there is no point asking me about a certain camera angle or the lighting. ‘I don’t think I’d have the career I have now if I didn’t have poor eyesight. But he counters this argument, saying it has played to his advantage.
Given the effects that nystagmus has, Osman’s success in a visual medium would seem all the more impressive. Put simply, sufferers cannot see this level of detail. Strangely, people with nystagmus cannot see their eyes flicker, and Osman has never noticed it in either a mirror or when he sees himself on screen. ‘I prefer my head and body to be off-centre, like in Pointless.’ ‘Staring at a fixed point when your eyes are constantly moving can make you feel nauseous and you want to look away,’ he adds. When Osman tried to look at the camera, the effort he put into trying to move his eyes back to the front led his head to appear as if it was subtly shaking. Within a fraction of a second, the battle starts again, over and over. What is so astonishing about nystagmus is that this happens at lightning speed. The other was then allowing them to slip sideways.Įach slip and correction causes the eyes to flicker. One part of Osman’s brain was telling his eyes to look at the camera. What viewers were actually witnessing was a neurological battle. ‘I also find looking directly at the camera pretty difficult,’ he explains. It meant that when filming Have I Got News For You he had little chance of being able to read the autocue, just a few feet away. He was born with it and there is no cure. Osman has nystagmus, an eye condition that dramatically reduces his vision. When the show went on air, a die-hard fan noticed Osman shaking slightly at the start and asked if he’d been drunk. With such a pedigree in TV, it might seem strange that last month Osman sent a tweet saying he was extremely nervous about hosting Have I Got News For You for the first time.
It attracts a stalwart three million viewers daily and has won him an army of female admirers who crowned the bespectacled, toothy Osman their top ‘Weird Crush’ of 2011. Now aged 42, Osman has moved in front of the camera, co-hosting more than 600 episodes of the BBC teatime hit quiz show Pointless with his friend Alexander Armstrong.
From the satirical Have I Got News For You and Whose Line Is It Anyway to crowd-pleasers such as Total Wipeout, Million Pound Drop and Deal Or No Deal, he’s been involved in them all.įor the past 12 years, the 6ft 7in inch Osman has worked for TV company Endemol, of Big Brother fame, which he has helped shape into the biggest production company in the world. For the past 20 years, it has been impossible to turn on the television without seeing something he dreamt up, wrote or produced. Richard Osman has been called the guru of the TV quiz show. ‘My eyes are so wobbly that trying to read an autocue is POINTLESS’: Richard Osman reveals why nystagmus has helped make him a star… and a ‘weird crush’ for fans
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