The Triple Nipple Club is a documentary shown on Channel 4 which explored the biological mystery of the supernumerary nipple[1]. First broadcast on 2 January 2008, it was directed and produced by Dan Louw and commissioned as part of Channel 4's First Cut series[2].
The film focuses on Dan’s attempts to understand why he was born with extra nipples, a condition he shares with the likes of Mark Wahlberg[3], Lily Allen[4] and Tilda Swinton, as well as well known TV and film characters such as Scaramanga and Chandler Bing.
Fascinated and confused by this seemingly pointless mutation, Dan sets off on a personal journey of discovery to try and unwrap “the riddle of the triple nipple”. He starts out by consulting the man in the street and even a renowned teratologist, an expert in physical mutations. After testing the notion that extra nipples could be a sign of fertility, he discovers that they are actually an atavism, or evolutionary ‘holdover’ – a sign of how humans evolved[5].