This Is Going to Hurt: What the Must Watch reviewers think

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Scott Bryan and Hayley Campbell review This Is Going to Hurt on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Based on the best-selling non-fiction memoir of the same name, the series follows junior doctor Adam Kay (Ben Whishaw) in his chaotic job in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Scott says: “Electric to watch”

“It is absolutely a Must Watch! This drama is electric to watch and is full to the brim of dark humour. It also explores issues that the NHS has been facing for a long time. In particular, the demanding hours and limited resources doctors and nurses have to deal with every day. It also highlights how no one day is the same. You are at the mercy of unpredictable and sometimes baffling situations. Within a few minutes in this drama, as the viewer, you’re witness to it all.

"Adam, the character that Ben Whishaw plays, is so complex. There's been a bit of a backlash to some of his character's cynicism and the way he speaks to his patients, and that it doesn't reflect what all junior doctors are like in this profession. But he is not representing all doctors. He's a complicated individual, constantly fluctuating between trauma and near burnout.

"I also want to say that Ambika Mod, who plays Shruti, is absolutely captivating. Her character is utterly believable. Whilst Adam is the lead character, she is the heart of this show. Although all episodes are available to watch now, I wouldn't recommend watching this series in one big go. I think you need a bit of time to breathe between these episodes, to stew on the plot."

Hayley says: “Gallows humour but there’s also pathos”

“This is a Must Watch for me too. I lived with a junior doctor in the early 2000s and he was basically a ghost: he was so tired he’d sometimes take his shoes off and put them in the fridge. The hours these people have to work is crazy, along with an incredibly stressful job. So I think they have a wicked sense of humour as a survival technique and we see it in this show.

"But the best ones I think never lose sight of what is at stake and how sad it can quickly become, especially on somewhere like a labour ward. So I was very impressed that the first episode did not keep that flippant tone all the way through and very quickly pierces through to show us what it's really like, and what it can do to the people who do this job.

“It’s not the show you think it’s going to be from the outset. It's the two sides of tragedy and comedy that make for the greatest theatre and, likewise, the people who do the stressful jobs are usually very funny and also very dark.

"Obviously this is one character, who is not speaking for all doctors, but I've found it is something that is strangely consistent over the ones I have met. There's gallows humour but there's also pathos, and if you're going to tell a story set in a labour ward you have to have the highs and you have to have the very lows or it's not meaningful or true. But I think that this has both.”

This Is Going to Hurt is available now on BBC iPlayer.

Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds and all other good podcast providers.

This week, the team speak to Jimmy Akingbola about Bel Air on Sky and NOW. Plus, reviews of The Fear Index (also on Sky and NOW) and Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America on BBC iPlayer.

Click here to listen to the latest episode.