“This is going to hurt”, a medical-funny series

Building on the success of his novel This is going to hurt, Adam Kay decided to adapt it for the screen.

“I like to think that no one before us had done such a realistic series about the hospital,” he explained in an interview for the BBC.

A former doctor, he insists on the need to depict not only the daily lives of medical personnel, but also the financial and family reality of the characters.

A raw series

The main character and narrator, Adam, is an obstetrician in a public hospital.

His dark circles, which never leave him, announce the color: in the hospital, life is tough.

You have to deal with the hierarchy, make up for the errors of the interns, reassure the patients and take care of the infants.

The first episode opens with a trying scene.

A young woman is giving birth somewhere outside the hospital.

Adam, who had just finished his service, had fallen asleep in his car.

He was called back urgently and somehow managed to lead the patient to a delivery room.

The panic is controlled by a surprising nonchalance.

There's blood, fluids, flesh and scalpels.

The author of the series quips in an interview: “I'm almost sure that no one has ever done such a disgusting series on the hospital!

»

English humor to the rescue

So, it's true, it is strongly advised not to make a meal tray in front of the scenes of cesareans.

But

does not go into gore.

She puts her finger where it hurts.

In the end, what is most violent to watch are not the medical acts, but the hellish paces and the lack of means.

This painful observation of the public hospital, Adam Kay experienced it from the inside during his previous career.

And it is in a comical tone that he manages to convey his experience.

It's funny, scathing, almost cynical at times.

Ben Wishaw, in the role of Adam, is impeccable: he always manages to draw on our faces, a crooked smile.

The hospital: inspiration without money

Series on the hospital, there have been:

,

and more recently

.

Each in a very different register, they knew how to make the hospital an exciting series setting.

But

off a stroke of genius: sublimating a quasi-documentary narrative with a humorously daring tone.

And yet, the state of British public hospitals is no laughing matter.

On November 25, 2019, before Covid-19 erupted in Europe,

newspaper wrote: “The number of hospital beds is at its lowest level on record […].

The English health system has cut so many beds in recent years that there are only 127,225 left to meet the growing demand for care, which will intensify with the coming winter.

".

This remark did not take into account the consequences of the pandemic on the public hospital… not on its knees, but on the ground.

Like

, whose third season will deal with the impact of the pandemic on French hospital staff, a sequel to

, with the same hint of mischief as this season, would be beneficial.

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