This Is Going to Hurt (2022 Lucy Forbes, writer Adam Kay)

This is really something, as knackered labour ward surgeon Ben Whishaw battles fatigue and overwork in a blackly comic tone reminiscent of Bringing Out the Dead. Moving and often hilarious, it's one of the best things this year.

Kay found more than one channel wanted to make a series based on his diaries. "Two things were very clear to me from the start. Firstly, it needed to be a comedy drama. The only accurate way to reflect the NHS is with a blend of the two, and leaning too hard in either direction would be a mistake. Secondly, Ben Whishaw needed to play me... His performance is absolutely astonishing - dancing seamlessly from the hilarious to the heartbreaking - I couldn't have hoped for a better, truer depiction of a junior doctor's life."

It particularly shows how able newcomer Ambika Mod has become over her brief journey. Episode involving private hospital is particularly effective cross-cutting to the much more basic, yet much more capable, national health version.

Alex Jennings is deliciously caustic as the senior registrar, Ashley McGuire good fun as a tough talking surgeon.  With Rory Fleck Byrne, Michele Austin, Phillipa Dunne (truly irritating wife), Josie Walker, Tom Durant Pritchard, Harriet Walter (despicable mother).