Three years after being announced, filming has finally completed on This Is Going To Hurt, the best selling book based on the real life diaries of author Adam Kay. The dramedy stars Ben Whishsaw in the lead role alongside Dame Harriet Walter, Ambika Mod, Michele Austin, Alex Jennings and Rory Fleck Byrne.
Kay’s diaries were scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, and tell the unvarnished truth of life as a junior doctor: the 97-hour weeks, the life and death decisions, the constant tsunami of bodily fluids and the fact the hospital parking meter earns more than you.
Originally announced by BBC Two, This is Going to Hurt, will be shown on BBC One later this year. The producers say “ This is a blisteringly funny, politically enraging and frequently heart-breaking wake-up call to anyone who values the NHS, and a frank and moving love letter to the 1.4 million people working on the front line every day.”
Set on labour ward with all its hilarity and heart-lifting highs but also its gut-wrenching lows, the show delivers a brutally honest depiction of life as a junior doctor on the wards, and the toll the job can take back home.
Adam Kay’s book was the Sunday Times number one bestseller, a position it held for over two months. Since publication in September 2017, it has been translated into more than 30 languages and won numerous awards including Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year. Alongside universal press acclaim, it has been described as ‘Painfully funny’ by Stephen Fry and ‘Heartbreaking and hilarious’ by Charlie Brooker.
In June last year, when it was announced that Ben Whishaw would play Adam Kay the actor said “I am proud to join this exciting adaptation of Adam Kay’s terrific book This Is Going To Hurt based on his experiences working in the NHS. It’s an honest, hilarious, heart-breaking look at the great institution and the army of unsung heroes who work there under the most stressful conditions. The COVID-19 crisis has now shed even more light on their great work and underlines the necessity to support the NHS and its workers. I look forward to telling this story with director Lucy Forbes and the great team at Sister to bring Adam’s words to life and I am really grateful to be a part of it.”
Produced by Sister Pictures for BBC Two, the 8×45’ series is adapted and produced by Kay himself.