Interviewer: You haven’t eaten again today.

Paul Gascoigne: I know. I should eat more.

Interviewer: So why don’t you, then?

Gascoigne (reaching for stomach): Because I feel fat.

Interviewer: You’re not fat.

Gascoigne (pointing at his lean chest): That’s fat. I feel fat. [Pause] I’ve got food disorder. I’ve got bi-polar. I’ve got mood swings. I’ve got anxiety. [Pause] Bored with life.

Interviewer: What do you normally do?

Gascoigne: [Pause] Sit here and get p***ed.

The above is what is known as a teaser, a 35-second trailer for Channel 4’s fly-on-the-wall documentary about Paul Gascoigne. It seems rather proud of the programme — which will be screened this evening immediately after that other freak show, Celebrity Big Brother — although the station’s website did not seem entirely sure yesterday whether it would be called “Surviving Gazza” or “Saving Gazza”. Strange, that.

A Channel 4 spokeswoman assures that the programme will, after all, be called Surviving Gazza. The agenda seems to have moved on from saving him. According to those who were once close to him — and this includes former team-mates, speaking privately, as well as those family members who lay bare their anguish and their hurt on this evening’s documentary — Gascoigne is already approaching or at the point where he is beyond salvation. The cruellest words of all those that will be broadcast this evening will come from his 12-year-old son, Regan, who tells the television cameras that “I don’t think there’s any point in helping him” and that “he’s probably going to die soon”.

The underlying message in all of this — “bored with life”, “he’s probably going to die soon”, the Surviving-or-Saving debate at Channel 4 — is that the modern-day tragedy of Paul Gascoigne has entered its final act. Those are not easy words to write, but, as he battles with his demons, with alcohol and mental illness, it seems that he succeeds only in pushing himself closer to oblivion.

There are those who will shed no tears for him — those who characterise him as nothing more than a washed-up drunk who p***ed away his career and earned even greater notoriety for beating his wife, Sheryl — but, for football supporters, who know him as arguably the most gifted player Britain has produced since George Best, the unravelling of Gascoigne’s life over the past decade and more has been a desperate tragedy.