‘The Trouble with Mr Doodle' review: Intense account of an artist who was taken over by his alter ego

Irish Independent

09-07-2025

Channel 4 documentary tells the story of how Sam Cox unravelled into psychosis – and it's like stepping inside a migraine
Pat Stacey
The Trouble with Mr Doodle (Channel 4, Thursday, July 10, 10pm) was he couldn't stop doodling. He just kept on doing it, for hours then days then weeks on end, often with little or no sleep, scrawling his squiggly black doodles over everything in sight.
Paper, bed covers, walls, floors, household appliances, his own clothes, even the €1.5m house he bought in posh Kent.
He had his uncle, a builder, strip the house to a shell and paint it white, inside and out, then covered every surface, every piece of furniture and every fixture and fitting with incredibly intricate doodles.
One newspaper article described entering the house as like 'stepping inside a migraine'.
Eventually, Mr Doodle, the fun (at first) persona artist Sam Cox had created for himself, doodled all over Sam's brain, practically erasing the kind, funny, thoughtful person he was and replacing him with an exhausting alter ego clad in black and white.
This 90-minute documentary tells the story of a talent that became an obsession that caused Cox to unravel into psychosis.
From the time he was a child, Cox drew from morning to bedtime, and often when he was supposed to be sleeping.
'I just let my brain fly away,' he says. 'It's almost like I'm not in control anymore.' Watching him draw, it's like his hand is acting independently.
The other thing he loved was playing different characters (home videos capture his performances). 'He was never confident when he wasn't dressed up,' says his father Neil.
It seems inevitable that Cox, part-visual artist, part-performance artist, would eventually create a character: Mr Doodle.
He had videos made of himself capering around the streets in his doodle suit and hat, trying to sell his pictures to baffled passers-by for a pound or trade them for goods with wary shopkeepers.
The videos are simultaneously funny, surreal and a little disturbing. 'I had visions of all these people looking and thinking he's just a lunatic,' says his mother Andrea.
Cox was landing some paid commissions, but his career really took off in 2017 after a woman posted a video of him doodling in a pop-up shop in London. It went viral, clocking up 43 million views.
Foreign news shows did reports on him. People all over the world started to buy his pictures. In Tokyo, one sold for a million dollars.
The richer and more successful he became, the more Mr Doodle took him over. He was more animated, his voice had changed.
'You'd look at him sometimes and it just wasn't Sam,' says Andrea. 'That was when Mr Doodle started to become not quite the happy, jolly persona we thought he was.'
That was when Mr Doodle started to become not quite the happy, jolly persona we thought he was
Cox's wife Alena, a Ukrainian artist (when they met for the first time in Berlin, they instantly fell in love), says: 'He was going deeper and deeper into this weird state.'
Cox was having a breakdown. After he'd been working for 36 hours straight, Alena persuade him to sleep. 'Two hours later when he woke up, he wasn't Sam anymore,' she says. He told her Sam was dead and he was now Mr Doodle.
Sam had to be sectioned. 'I hated that character that he'd created,' says Andrea. 'I just wanted him to go away.'
He was released six weeks later, but it was clear to everyone, including Cox, that he wasn't fully recovered. 'I couldn't control my brain properly,' he says.
He was suffering delusions. He imagined he was friends with Kanye West and Banksy, that Donald Trump had asked him to doodle on his border wall, and that his mother was Nigel Farage (Andrea can see the funny side of that).
Cox said he no longer wanted to be Mr Doodle and had no desire to draw.
'That didn't last long,' says Alena. He began doodling again. He was having a psychotic episode, but his doctors didn't know how long it would last.
With its stop-motion animations of doodles and chorus of squeaky, babbling voices (a reflection of Cox's mental turmoil), the film also sometimes feels like stepping inside a migraine
After a period of toing and froing between Cox and Mr Doodle, he regained his equilibrium with the support network of his family and old art teacher. His mother believes Mr Doodle doesn't exist anymore.
With its stop-motion animations of doodles and chorus of squeaky, babbling voices (a reflection of Cox's mental turmoil), the film also sometimes feels like stepping inside a migraine.
You may find the ad breaks, normally an irritant, a welcome relief from its sensory overload.