Trust Me, I’m not a doctor..
The BBC’S new thriller, Trust Me, is a hospital drama with a difference – the woman posing as an A&E consultant isn’t a real doctor.
Broadchurch’s Jodie Whittaker plays competent and compassionate nurse Cath Hardacre who decides to blow the whistle on workplace malpractice.
The only problem is that instead of taking her concerns on board and rewarding her diligence, her NHS bosses turn on her and she is suspended pending further enquiries.
Meanwhile, her best friend Dr Ally Sutton (Andrea Lowe) heads to New Zealand to live with her farmer husband.
So, for single mum Cath the solution to keeping a roof over her daughter Mollie’s head seems simple – take her pal’s identity, apply for a job in an Edinburgh hospital and, well, wing it from there. FRAZZLED
The drama, written by reallife doctor Dan Sefton, is full of twists and turns and features a stellar cast. Inbetweeners star Blake Harrison plays Cath’s ex, Karl, while Downton Abbey’s Sharon Small plays her frazzled new boss Brigitte Raynes.
Whittaker (soon to be the first female Dr Who) is convincing as a conflicted medical professional whose bid to do the right thing takes her down a dangerous path.
Writer Sefton describes her as a “decent, honourable woman who, when everything is falling apart, takes a huge risk in search of a better life”.
Whittaker admitted that taking on the role of a deceitful medical professional had its challenges – not least learning complicated medical terms. She said: “I enjoy the adrenaline of being on set because I’m quite good at choreography. I respond well to being taught something physically. “That’s why I was terrible at school, because they talk you through things rather than physically show you. “I enjoyed doing the different types of surgery as it was fascinating. “It’s nerve-wracking but you realise you can do it. But I don’t have a brain for that [speeches with medical terms].” She revealed writer Dan Sefton helped her to learn the various medical procedures. And she added: “He’s also a medical consultant and a doctor outside of TV production and he showed us a load of stuff that he used when he was training people.
“He brought in the CPR dummy and showed us how to do a cannula and he let me put a cannula in his vein. I did it right, thank God.”
However, things don’t go as smoothly with a real-life (so to speak) patient and Cath’s intricate web of lies looks set to unravel when she’s called on to administer emergency treatment in a lift.
Trust Me starts on BBC One on Tuesday August 8 at 9pm.