This Is Going To Hurt

A medic's take on This Is Going To Hurt

I squirmed in my seat when former doctor Adam Kay ­verbally eviscerated a heckler. He was as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel and as mean as a betrayed woman in a blues song. It hurt. Anyone attending his live shows: be warned. 

His new medical drama, BBC One’s This Is Going To Hurt, should come with a health warning. This is not because of the gore (of which there is plenty), but because one aspect of junior ­doctors’ lives has improved since his and my time – though this, sadly, could soon regress with Brexit. 

New series to look out for in 2021

The Serpent

BBC One

Release Date: New Year’s Day


Jenna Coleman as Marie-Andrée Leclerc and Tahir Rahim as Charles Sobhraj (credit: BBC)

The seventies-set international crime thriller The Serpent follows the true story of global efforts to capture Interpol’s most wanted man, the murderer Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim, A Prophet).