Last night's (16 September) devastating Channel 4 care home drama Help has been showered with praise by viewers - many of whom are calling for Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham to receive BAFTAs for their powerful performances. You can watch the trailer below:
The one-off drama penned by Jack Thorne (Enola Holmes, His Dark Materials) revolves around the relationship between care worker Sarah (Comer) and Tony (Graham), a 47-year-old patient with young-onset Alzheimer's as Covid-19 takes a hold of the Liverpool care home.
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The harrowing drama certainly made a strong impression on viewers, who singled out Killing Eve star Comer and Line of Duty actor Graham for particular praise.
One viewer wrote on Twitter: "Give Stephen Graham & Jodie Comer the BAFTA now. Actually, give them every award out there for showing us the incredible, disgraceful, heartbreaking truth."
Another said: "#Help - that was upsetting & brilliant in equal measures. Thank you @StephenGraham73 and Jodie Comer for such powerful performances and that final speech. @Channel4 BAFTA worthy drama."
A third added: "Sorry Sean Bean I thought you were a nailed on cert for a BAFTA for Time but then Jody Comer and Stephen Graham came along in #Help."
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Comer has already won a BAFTA for her performance as fashion-conscious assassin Villanelle in BBC's Killing Eve, bagging the gong for Leading Actress in 2019.
Graham, meanwhile, has been nominated for a BAFTA four times, but is yet to win one.
Come on BAFTA, surely this needs to change.
One of the most affecting sequences in Help has to be the 25 minute one-shot when Sarah is left to cover the night shift on her own and desperately tries to help a Covid-positive resident who's finding it difficult to breathe.
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Comer has offered some insight as to how that scene came about.
Speaking at a press Q&A, she said: "I think it was such a clever decision by [director Marc Munden] because I think that sequence is relentless. It's relentless for her and what Marc wanted was for the audience to feel exactly that and experience the exact same thing.
"What was so beautiful in a way about doing it like that was the team work, because these were long takes. These were long, long, long takes. So there was a lot of rehearsal to make sure that everybody knew where they needed to be at each moment.
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"Even the pace I'm walking, I've got to walk a certain pace because the camera man is holding the camera. We were all kind of in sync with each other so when we were all moving like that, it was so incredible."
You can watch Help on All4.
Featured Image Credit: Channel 4Topics: TV and Film, UK Entertainment
