THIS IS GOING TO HURT PRODUC T I ON .
TOUGH ON EVERY LEVEL Alex Jennings, Ambika Mod and Ben Whishaw portray doctors with varying levels of experience. But what links them all is the chaos and stress of their working environment – and the toll that takes
Did you know? Adam Kay was an obstetrics and gynaecology trainee between 2004 and 2010, before leaving the profession after witnessing a patient suffer a placental abruption, leading to the stillbirth of her child. He’s now a comedian and author, with writing credits on shows such as Crims , Mrs Brown’s Boys and Mongrels .
action is framed with other actors, rather than structures in the way. In episode 4, there is an emergency in A&E as a patient collapses. While the alarm rings, every shot is crowded with staff attempting to treat her and console her distraught partner. Again, we are close to the “We feel as if we are like Shruti, junior doctors new to the environment, rushing around in the chaos while we don’t yet know what’s happening”
us relate strongly to the characters – we feel as if we are like Shruti, junior doctors very new to the environment, rushing around in the chaos while we don’t yet know what’s happening. This further contributes to the authentic aesthetic – and characters are often framed ‘imperfectly’. Throughout the series, Adam frequently visits a premature baby he delivered, to make sure he’s OK – due to guilt he feels over the circumstances of the birth. Adam’s
face is framed, but partially obscured, through small openings in the baby’s incubator. These shots are powerful in their imprecision, and we’re able to see the closeness and intentness with which he is watching the child. The incubator and its significance is magnified in these moments. Though bittersweet, they are a calm reprieve from the chaos of the show as a whole. The series most closely rides the line of a documentary aesthetic when the
43. APRIL 2022
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