Breathtaking, a forthcoming three-part TV drama from ITV, will chronicle the hospital crisis surrounding the beginning of the Covid pandemic, based on Rachel Clarke’s memoir of the same name. It will star Golden Globe winning actor Joanne Froggatt,
Over three years on from this period, the Covid crisis still remains a topic of daily conversation as the larger health crisis in collective living memory – and now the new drama will provide a “searing, thought-provoking and poignant account of an NHS doctor in the eye of the storm”.
Author Rachel Clarke developed the season in collaboration with writer-team Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty, Bodyguard) and Prasanna Puwanarajah (Doctor Foster), who are both former junior doctors. It was produced by HTM Television, the UK production company co-owned by Mercurio in collaboration with Hat Trick Productions.
Commenting during filming, Mercurio said: ““Everyone at HTM Television has felt privileged to dramatise Rachel Clarke’s hauntingly illuminating memoir of health workers struggling to cope with the extraordinary challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Here’s what we know so far about the drama, which is directed by Craig Viveiros (Angela Black, The Watch, The War Of The Worlds).
Plot
Breathtaking is a TV adaptation of palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke’s bestselling memoir, Breathtaking: The UK’s Human Story of Covid, which was published in January 2021. It was an account of the doctor’s own experiences working on the frontline of the NHS during the height of the coronavirus epidemic.
While little is known of the specific narrative, the synopsis gives us a clue of what to expect: “Set in a fictional big-city hospital, the drama narrates how frontline medical staff endured fear and frustration as they desperately tried to save the lives of coronavirus patients.”
Cast
At the helm of Breathtaking is actor Joanne Froggatt, best known for her roles in Downton Abbey and Liar. She plays frontline acute medicine consultant Dr Abbey Henderson. The other cast members are not yet known.
After filming ended in May, Froggatt said in a statement: “I feel truly honoured to be playing Dr Abbey Henderson in Breathtaking, based on Dr Rachel Clarke’s beautifully written, poignant and shocking book of the same name. When I first read the incredible scripts they moved me to tears on many occasions. I felt so passionately that I had to be a part of telling this story, the real story, of what was really happening behind the closed doors of the hospitals during the pandemic.”
She added: ““Our NHS staff are nothing less than absolute heroes in my eyes, and I hope telling this story goes a little way towards us understanding their truth, their lived experience and honouring their unbelievable commitment and sacrifice on behalf of us all.”
Release date
While we do not yet have a release date, what is known is that the series has completed filming in Northern Ireland and will be available to watch on ITV and ITVX when it is released.