Featured Image Credit: ITV
Topics: NHS, ITV, TV and Film, Coronavirus
Jess Battison
Plenty of us might spend our evenings binging our way through a Netflix series or marathoning a few films, while others are watching, you know, the actual telly.
And ITV viewers are now urging people to watch a traumatic new drama ‘if they’re able’ as second episode airs tonight (20 February).
The broadcaster has been shaking audiences up big time recently with its intense show, Trigger Point. But rather than diffusing bombs, this new show is based on a NHS doctor’s memoir.
Don’t panic though, it’s not another hospital-based soap opera - this three-part drama follows NHS medics during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Directed by Craig Viveiros, Dr. Rachel Clarke’s memoir is adapted for TV by herself, Prasanna Puwanarajah and Line of Duty’s Jed Mercurio.
Breathtaking premiered on ITV last night, with fellow NHS workers thanking Clarke for ‘telling [their] story’.
Starring Joanne Froggatt, the series ‘pays tribute to sacrifices made by NHS staff’ during the pandemic while ‘revealing the reality of hospital life in the face of momentous challenges’.
As the show landed on ITV, Clarke wrote on X: “Please watch if you feel able. Please don’t look away.”
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One user also echoed: “If you can, watch Breathtaking on ITV tonight. Many of us can't watch because it brings back too many traumatic moments that we haven't yet properly dealt with but, if you are able, we owe it to incredible people of the NHS to listen to their stories.”
An NHS staff member pointed out how the ‘little details are so well observed’ in the show as others said they can’t bring themselves to watch it ‘just yet because of the memories’.
Plenty of viewers are calling it ‘brilliant’ as they say it makes them ‘angry’ to watch what NHS workers went through.
As reported by the Guardian, Clarke never planned on making her experiences public when she first wrote them down.
It was something she did as a ‘kind of private therapy’ when she was too stressed to sleep.
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But when the news of Dominic Cummings’ infamous trip to Barnard Castle broke, she became angry enough to turn them into her memoir, ultimately leading to this ITV drama.
Ahead of the release of Breathtaking, Clarke said: “There is so much misinformation and rewriting of history around what really happened inside our hospitals during the pandemic. The truth is, NHS staff gave everything they had in impossible conditions that sometimes cost them their lives.
“It is an honour to try and depict the courage and decency of my NHS colleagues on screen, and I’m so grateful to ITV and HTM Television for giving me the chance to show the public the truth.”
Breathtaking is currently on ITVX with the second episode airing on ITV1 tonight at 9pm and the third tomorrow.