For everyone TV review: Jagged (HBO)

★★★★

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has listened to Canadian singer Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill that she is a candid and articulate speaker – with a lot to say. Some facts: both of her parents are teachers; she is a twin; she was a child actor; and she self-recorded her first single as a pre-teen. 

Morissette went on to have a pop-princess-style recording career before exploding onto the world’s music stage at age 21 with Jagged Little Pill. It remains one of the best-selling albums of all time; a record that changed the course of her life.

As with so many stories of children working in an industry before maturity, there was exploitation, and there was damage. This is a look behind the scenes, with plenty of footage from the album tour, and a comprehensive interview with Morissette, whose humour and fierceness are now underlined by some hard-won wisdom.