--- title: "This Is Going to Hurt" year: 2022 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/this-is-going-to-hurt" fi1m_score: 84 critics_score: 88 critics_reviews: 9 published: "2026-09-17T04:23:43.175264+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T04:23:43.587558+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # This Is Going to Hurt (2022) Created by Adam Kay · Comedy, Drama **Fi1m score: 84** · Critics 88 from 9 reviews *In a sentence:* A comedy about a doctor who talks to camera so he does not have to talk to anyone else > Adam Kay’s adaptation of his own diaries gives Ben Whishaw a junior doctor who is funny to us and unbearable to everyone else, and it earns both. The asides to camera wear thin by the middle; Ambika Mod, as his trainee, is the reason to stay. ## Synopsis An NHS hospital, 2006. Adam Kay (Ben Whishaw) is a junior doctor in obstetrics and gynaecology, working shifts on a labour ward with too many patients and not enough staff, and the shifts run into one another. Around him are the consultant Lockhart (Alex Jennings), the midwife Tracy (Michele Austin), who has seen every kind of doctor and is not impressed by this one, and Shruti Acharya (Ambika Mod), a new trainee who has seen none of it yet. Away from the ward there is Harry (Rory Fleck-Byrne) and Adam’s mother, Veronique (Harriet Walter), and not much time for either of them. Kay adapts his own memoir across seven episodes. ## Review Adam Kay kept a diary as a junior doctor, turned it into a book, and has now turned the book into seven episodes of television in which Ben Whishaw plays a character called Adam Kay. The setting is a labour ward in 2006, which matters because the series wants you to know that the shortages, the bullying and the rota that runs a man into the ground are not a new story. Lucy Forbes and Tom Kingsley direct. The aim is a comedy about a place where nobody has time to laugh. It very nearly gets there. This is a sharp, angry, well-acted piece of work that we would recommend to almost anyone who can stand the sight of blood, with the caveat that its one big formal trick starts to cost it around the fourth episode. Most critics have gone a little higher than we have. We think they are forgiving a slackness in the plotting that a series this confident should not need. Whishaw plays Adam as a man who has decided that rudeness is a form of efficiency. He is good at the job and lets everyone know it, and when a scene threatens to become unbearable he turns to the camera and says something clever. The trick lets us in and shuts everybody else out, which is the point. We laughed at the asides for two episodes, then noticed that nobody in the frame was laughing with him, and stopped. Michele Austin’s Tracy watches him the way you would watch a colleague you have already reported once. Ambika Mod’s Shruti is the series’ spine. She is on her first job, she has none of Adam’s armour and no time to grow any, and Mod plays her tiredness as something that gets into the shoulders and the voice long before anyone comments on it. There is a shot of her alone at a nurses’ station after a night shift, not crying, just unable to decide what to do with her hands, and we felt something closer to dread than sympathy. Her story takes a turn in the second half that we will not describe. The ward looks right. Dick Lunn’s production design gives it strip lights, peeling notices, a curtain on a broken rail and a vending machine nobody has filled, and Benedict Spence and Nick Cooke shoot it in the flat white of a place where it is always three in the morning. The car park at night is sodium orange and the only warm colour in the run. Emma Rees dresses everyone in scrubs that do not quite fit, which is accurate. Jo Walker, Peter Oliver and Selina Macarthur cut each shift as a run of interruptions, so that a conversation is rarely allowed to finish, and Serafina Steer and Jarvis Cocker’s music is a handful of notes that keep stopping short, as if they too were owed a break. The faults are real. Direct address is a hard habit to keep fresh, and by the middle episodes Whishaw is turning to us out of reflex rather than need. Harriet Walter is given a disapproving mother and not much else to do with her. Rory Fleck-Byrne’s Harry is patient to the point of furniture. Alex Jennings is enjoyable as Lockhart but the character is a cartoon of a consultant, and a mistake from an early shift that follows Adam through the series is handled like a thriller in a drama that does not need one. None of this is fatal. It is what stops a very good series from being a great one. Jed Mercurio’s *Cardiac Arrest* and *Bodies* did the anger before this, and did it with less charm. Kay’s advantage is that he is willing to make his own stand-in the problem. The series does not ask us to like Adam. It asks us to notice what the building has done to him and what he is doing to Shruti in turn, and by the end we had. It carries a 15 certificate, for the blood and the language, and there is a great deal of both. If anyone in the house is pregnant, or was recently, be honest with yourselves about whether tonight is the night. *Fi1m score 84, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are unanimous in approving and nearly so in tone: most critics find the adaptation of Adam Kay’s memoir both funny and sad, often in the same scene, and praise it for showing the exhaustion and understaffing of a maternity ward without softening anything. The praise gathers around Ben Whishaw, whose prickly, blood-soaked junior doctor is described as hard to like and hard to stop watching. Several critics note that the character’s arrogance and bitterness are left intact rather than sanded down. Reservations are few and small. The Telegraph finds some of the vulgarity carried over from the book unwelcome, and The Guardian, the coolest of the nine, treats it as a solid addition to a familiar line of unflinching NHS dramas rather than anything new. The Evening Standard is alone in putting Ambika Mod ahead of Whishaw, and Empire is the only one to credit the directors, Lucy Forbes and Tom Kingsley. The spread is narrow and nobody dislikes it. ### Reviews we read (9) - **Radio Times**, Lauren Morris (5/5): The critic calls the series a hilarious yet heart-breaking tribute to the NHS and an emotional rollercoaster. They single out Ben Whishaw's excellent performance as the initially unlikeable but compelling Adam. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/this-is-going-to-hurt-review/) - **The Times**, Carol Midgley (★★★★★): The adaptation is excellent and succeeds at being both laugh-out-loud funny and profoundly sad, with Ben Whishaw excelling as the exhausted, blood-soaked junior doctor navigating pandemonium. It captures the gallows humour and grim realities of understaffed maternity wards without sentimentality. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/this-is-going-to-hurt-review-bbc-adaptation-adam-kay-memoir-fnl2ks2dt) - **Empire**, Boyd Hilton (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the series for mixing tragedy and comedy to powerful effect and turning personal experiences into compelling TV. They highlight Ben Whishaw's superbly judged performance and the vivid direction by Lucy Forbes and Tom Kingsley. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/this-is-going-to-hurt/) - **Evening Standard** (90/100, inferred): This superlative adaptation is funny, chaotic and heartbreaking, delivering a nuanced tribute to the NHS through its mix of dark humour, stress and anger at systemic failures. Standout performances, especially from Ambika Mod, bring to life the disillusionment and resilience of junior doctors. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/this-is-going-to-hurt-review-bbc-one-iplayer-ben-whishaw-adam-kay-b981133.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (85/100, inferred): The critic deems it one of the best medical dramas in years for its emotionally complex and uneasily hilarious examination of the NHS. They single out Ben Whishaw's prickly, funny character study for praise. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/this-is-going-to-hurt-1235154204/) - **IndieWire**, Steve Greene (80/100, inferred): The critic describes the series as another strong 2022 TV portrait of burnout. They highlight its dark humor and the visceral anxiety around the blurred boundaries of a demanding job. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/this-is-going-to-hurt-ben-whishaw-amc-medical-drama-burnout-1234742531/) - **The Telegraph**, Anita Singh (4/5): Ben Whishaw delivers a strong performance in this warts-and-all portrait of chaotic NHS life on the labour ward, offering valuable insight despite some vulgar elements carried over from the source material. The series benefits from Whishaw humanising the central character while showing the relentless pace and personal toll on staff. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/going-hurt-review-ben-whishaw-delivers-warts-and-all-portrait/) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The BBC adaptation of Adam Kay’s memoir is a worthy successor to other unflinching NHS dramas, depicting the exhaustion, bullying and resource shortages faced by junior doctors without softening the protagonist’s bitterness or arrogance. It highlights the life-and-death pressures and systemic issues in obstetrics and gynaecology through graphic, realistic scenes. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/08/this-is-going-to-hurt-review-ben-whishaw-stars-in-a-realism-packed-adaptation) - **Paste**, Shane Ryan (9.7/10): The series is spectacular and a heartbreaking, hilarious hit that conveys the grim realities of junior doctors' lives with grim realism while remaining hugely funny and watchable. It balances searing sadness with biting humor and educational value through its focus on the protagonist's experiences on an underfunded NHS ward. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/this-is-going-to-hurt/this-is-going-to-hurt-review) ## Details - **Created by:** Adam Kay - **Creator:** Adam Kay - **Director:** Lucy Forbes, Tom Kingsley - **Cinematography:** Benedict Spence, Nick Cooke - **Editor:** Jo Walker, Peter Oliver, Selina Macarthur - **Music:** Jarvis Cocker, Serafina Steer - **Production design:** Dick Lunn - **Costume design:** Emma Rees - **Producer:** Holly Pullinger - **Cast:** Ben Whishaw as Adam Kay; Ambika Mod as Shruti Acharya; Rory Fleck-Byrne as Harry; Michele Austin as Tracy; Alex Jennings as Lockhart; Tom Durant-Pritchard as Greg; Ashley McGuire as Houghton; Harriet Walter as Veronique - **Release (the US):** 8 February 2022 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4h8xbc0cPg ## Where to watch in the US - AMC+: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: free - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Apple TV: add-on, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AT, AU, CA, DE, GB, IN, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Getting On* (2009): Jo Brand’s geriatric ward comedy, quieter than this and just as unsparing about the NHS. - *Cardiac Arrest* (1994): Jed Mercurio’s junior doctors, furious and sleepless, three decades before Adam Kay. - *The Kingdom* (1994): Lars von Trier’s haunted Danish hospital, where the ghosts are the least of it. - *Hospital* (1970): Frederick Wiseman’s documentary of a New York casualty department, with no music and no mercy. - *Fleabag* (2016), Fi1m 90: Another narrator who talks to camera to avoid talking to the people beside her. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/fleabag.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/this-is-going-to-hurt