Based on a true story. The remarkable life of a Tourette syndrome campaigner, who grew up with the condition in 1980s Scotland, when it was little known and misunderstood. A film by Kirk Jones, starring Robert Aramayo, Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson, Scott Ellis Watson, David Carlyle, Christina Ashford, Sanjeev Kohli, Steven Cree, Ethan Stewart, Isla Mercer, Catriona McArthur, Paul Donnelly, Ron Donachie, Jamie McAllister, Abigail Noon, Leah MacRae, Douglas Rankine, Francesco Piacentini-Smith, Chris Dixon, John McLarnon, Anthony Capaldi, Donald Morrison, Ruth Milne, Paul Cassidy, and Peter Mullan.

In 1983, aspiring young football player John Davidson (Scott Ellis Watson) lives with his working-class family in Galashiels, Scotland. Before school each morning, he delivers newspapers around his neighborhood.

John’s family consists of his father David (Steven Cree), mother Heather (Shirley Henderson), older sister Sharon (Catriona McArthur), younger brother William (Ethan Stewart), and younger sister Caroline (Isla Mercer).

Over breakfast, David reminds John to polish his boots for his big game. Heather adds that she needs to take him shopping afterward, and John agrees to meet her at the bus stop once he finishes. David then mentions that he is working on a house near the park that morning and might stop by later to watch the game.

During the game, John makes a spectacular penalty save as goalkeeper. His performance impresses his coach, Billie Dean (Paul Donnelly), as well as David, who drops by to watch his son play. Excited by John’s potential, Billie reaches out to his friend Gerry (Taqi Nazeer), a professional scout for Berwick Rangers, and invites him to see John play.

Founded in 1881, Berwick Rangers is a professional football club based in Berwick-upon-Tweed, a town in England that sits just 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border. Despite being on English soil, the club is geographically much closer to Edinburgh than to Newcastle upon Tyne, making it far more practical to compete against teams in the Scottish Borders region. As a result, Berwick Rangers affiliated with the Scottish Football Association around 1905 and were officially admitted to the Scottish Football League in 1951, becoming famous as the only club from outside Scotland to play in the Scottish Professional Football League. The club plays its home matches at Shielfield Park and is known by the nicknames “The Black and Gold” and “The Borderers.”

Two weeks later, John suddenly develops inexplicable tics in the middle of English class. His strange behavior quickly catches the attention of the English teacher (Ella Victoria Robb) and his classmates, including his best friend Murray (Jamie McAllister).

One student even mocks him by joking that someone electrified his chair. Assuming John is just messing around, the teacher loses her patience and demands to know what he is doing. Unable to explain the situation, John asks to use the restroom, and she lets him go. After school, a group of classmates follows him down the corridor, teasing him about his tics until John runs all the way home.

During dinner, David and Heather notice John’s twitching. Assuming he is just messing around, they demand to know what he is doing. John brushes them off and says it is nothing, but the tics refuse to stop. When Heather presses him further, John is unable to explain them. He insists that he does not want to talk about it and goes to his room without finishing his food, leaving the family confused.

Sensing that something is wrong, Heather goes to check on him. John tries to explain the involuntary twitching in his neck and eyes. However, since the tics stop completely while they are talking, Sharon simply concludes that he is imagining things.

John takes Kerry Robinson (Abigail Noon), his crush from school, on a date to the local cinema to see the movie Tootsie. He is caught off guard when Kerry’s overprotective mother (Leah MacRae) shows up as well, insisting on chaperoning to make sure John behaves himself. In the middle of the movie, John involuntarily shouts out an obscenity, completely shocking Kerry. He tries to explain what happened, but a terrified Kerry quickly leaves the cinema with her mother.

The following day at the school canteen, Headmaster Donald Watkins (Ron Donachie) sits at John’s table to check on the first-year students. Suddenly, John spits out his food and inexplicably shouts a profanity right in the headmaster’s face. Donald does not take the outburst lightly, even though John desperately tries to explain and apologize. He sends John to his office and punishes the boy by whipping his left hand with a belt. The severe punishment comes at the worst possible time, occurring just days before the professional scout is scheduled to assess John’s goalkeeping skills.

🅟

@pradt

I SWEAR 🫨
Based on a true story.
—
A film by Kirk Jones, starring Robert Aramayo, Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson, Scott Ellis Watson, Francesco Piacentini-Smith, Steven Cree, David Carlyle, Jamie McAllister, Ron Donachie, Douglas Rankine, and Peter Mullan.

Written and directed by English filmmaker Kirk Jones, I SWEAR is a comedy-drama based on the true story of John Davidson, a Scottish man living with severe Tourette syndrome.

Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition that causes tics, which are sudden, repetitive movements or sounds that a person cannot fully control. These can be motor tics, such as blinking, shoulder shrugging, or head jerks, or vocal tics like throat clearing, sniffing, and grunting. Tics can change over time and may become more or less noticeable depending on the situation. The condition usually begins in childhood, often between the ages of 5 and 10, and symptoms tend to lessen with age. The exact cause is not fully known, but it is believed to involve a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and it is more common in boys than girls. There is no cure, though many people do not need treatment unless symptoms interfere with daily life. Tourette syndrome does not affect life expectancy, and most people with the condition live full, normal lifespans. Tourette syndrome often occurs alongside other conditions such as ADHD, OCD, anxiety, or depression. When treatment is needed, options include behavioral therapy, counseling, or medication.

The ensemble cast delivers strong performances throughout, particularly Robert Aramayo as John Davidson, Scott Ellis Watson as young John, Maxine Peake as Dottie Achenbach, and Shirley Henderson as Heather Davidson.

The narrative is compelling, though the pacing feels a little slow at times. The portrayal of tics is understandable given the nature of Tourette syndrome, but it can be difficult to watch, creating an unsettling sense that something worse is about to happen.

Overall, I SWEAR is a heartwarming story worth watching even if you have no personal connection to Tourette syndrome. It offers a much better understanding of the condition, though as John himself repeatedly points out, he does not see it as a disability.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I SWEAR premiered at Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2025. The film was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 10 October.

John Davidson is a nationally recognized campaigner and activist for Tourette syndrome. At 16, he became the subject of the 1989 BBC documentary John’s Not Mad, which chronicled his life with severe Tourette syndrome, including tics, echolalia, coprolalia, and OCD, and sparked widespread public conversation. His story continued to resonate over the decades, leading to further documentaries including The Boy Can’t Help It (2002), Tourettes: I Swear I Can’t Help It (2009), and Tourettes & Me (2014). After leaving school without formal qualifications, Davidson dedicated his life to community service, working for many years as a youth worker and caretaker at the Langlee Community Centre in Galashiels, Scotland. He has partnered with organizations such as Tourette Scotland and Tourettes Action to visit schools, give public talks, and run educational workshops for teachers and police officers. He is also known for organizing annual residential camps for young people with Tourette syndrome, offering a supportive community for those isolated by their symptoms. In recognition of his lifelong advocacy work, Davidson was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 New Year Honours.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

John Davidson’s memoir, I Swear: My Life with Tourette’s, written with psychotherapist and writer Abbie Ross, was published in 21 August 2025. Raw, personal, and often humorous, it charts his life from a happy, football-mad childhood in the Scottish Borders to the sudden onset of severe tics around the age of ten. A significant portion of the book focuses on growing up in an era with little public or medical understanding of Tourette syndrome, when his involuntary tics and vocal outbursts led to him being labeled disruptive and unstable. He writes candidly about severe bullying, isolation, and a period of institutionalization during which heavy medication left him numb rather than helped. At the heart of the memoir is his transformative friendship with Dottie, the mother of a childhood friend who became a vital supportive figure in his life, and whose compassion helped him rebuild. The book has been widely praised for stripping away the shock value often associated with severe Tourette’s to reveal the deeply human story beneath. Authors including Jojo Moyes and Rachel Joyce have lauded it as both an inspiring account of survival and an essential tool for destigmatizing the condition.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The True Story Behind I Swear and John Davidson’s Journey with Tourette’s
Davidson remembers meeting Jones in November 2022. “I was nervous and apprehensive,” he says, “as the Tourette’s community has traditionally not received a great level of respect from the media. Whether it’s films, radio, press, or comedians telling jokes about us, we’ve come to accept that we are often invited on TV shows to be laughed at, instead of understood.” To prove his good intentions, Jones offered Davidson an executive producer role on the film. “Most people don’t know what that means because they’re not in the industry, but I explained that it means you get a voice, and that you will be listened to,” says Jones. It was also vital to Davidson that he get to meet the person who would be portraying him. “When I met Rob,” Jones says of the actor Robert Aramayo, “one of the first things I did was take him up to Galashiels to see John. He was thrilled with the meeting.” Adds Davidson, “I felt that my story would be safe in his hands and was happy to move forward and give him my blessing.” The pair spent several weeks together in Davidson’s hometown, where he still lives today.