ITV has released a new trailer for COVID-19 drama Breathtaking starring Yorkshire’s Joanne Froggatt, based on the real-life memoirs of Dr Rachel Clarke, which details the early days of the pandemic. The new drama is said to be the next affecting drama after Mr Bates vs The Post Office gripped the nation.
In the new trailer we see, Joanne Froggatt from Downton Abbey and Liar playing Clarke the early days of the virus hitting Abbey’s big city hospital and see how the frontline staff cope with the new outbreak. Abbey, with two small children at home, appears level headed in a crisis, but with the NHS overwhelmed she sees the conditions in unprecedented adversity.
We see actual news footage from the then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock creating a realistic atmosphere making the harrowing hospital scenes all the more real.
The pandemic is still rife in people’s minds, so this drama is sure to hit home with a lot of people who lost or knew someone who lost friends and family to the virus. The show is inspired by the sacrifices that NHS staff members made during the COVID-19 pandemic. The trailer states it’s “the story you haven’t been told”, so we could expect some revelations from the ITV series.
Adapted by Line of Duty’s Jed Mercurio and actor Prasanna Puwanarajah, both former junior doctors, the three-part series is set to be revealing. Speaking about the new drama Mercurio said Clarke’s memoir was “hauntingly illuminating” praising cast and crew.
Joanne Froggatt said: “I feel truly honoured to be playing Dr Abbey Henderson in Breathtaking, based on Dr Rachel Clarke’s beautifully written, poignant and shocking book of the same name.
“When I first read the incredible scripts, they moved me to tears on many occasions. I felt so passionately that I had to be a part of telling this story, the real story, of what was really happening behind the closed doors of the hospitals during the pandemic.”
Watch the trailer for ITV’s Breathtaking below:
The new drama is set to air on Monday 19th February at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVx and airs until Wednesday, 21st February.
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Feature Image Credit: ITV
