Manori Ravindran International EditorAdam Kay’s TV adaptation of his 2017 memoir “This Is Going to Hurt” paints a portrait of Britain’s beleaguered National Heath Service that is “genital warts and all,” according to the screenwriter.
Its purpose, he says, is reminding audiences of the thankless and often unrecognized work of healthcare professionals.Starring Ben Whishaw (“No Time to Die”) as a junior doctor with the NHS during the early 2000s, the BBC-AMC co-production is set on a labor ward around 2004 — a full 15 years before the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the publicly funded healthcare system to the very brink.
Yet as the show plainly presents, the NHS has lacked adequate resources for years, and its staff have paid the price. “I want people who work at the NHS to watch and know I did a fair representation of their job,” said Kay, speaking as part of a webinar in January alongside producer Jane Featherstone, director Lucy Forbes, and stars Whishaw and Ambika Mod.
The show is based on Kay’s collection of diary entries from his time as a junior doctor that formed his bestselling memoir.“I want other people to rethink their relationship with healthcare professionals,” continued Kay. “Not once did a patient wonder if I wanted to be there.
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