Jodie kills it as doctor strange before taking on Doctor Who

Successful women are more prone than anyone to suffer what psychologists call Imposter syndrome — a nagging feeling that they don’t deserve their jobs and are about to be found out.

Jodie Whittaker’s hospital drama Trust Me (BBc1) delivers a clever twist on that insecurity. she plays sister cath Hardacre, a nurse with 20 years’ experience on the wards, who makes a fresh start . . . by posing as a doctor.

Thanks to a sheaf of stolen documents, she makes a convincing medic. But cath is guiltily terrified of exposure, every time she sees colleagues look sideways at her.

Trust Me is Jodie’s chance to deliver a tour de force performance, before she steps into the Tardis as a different kind of Doctor next year. We already knew that she can look strong but sad, after three series of Broadchurch in which she was the saintly mother of a murdered boy.

This drama, even if it’s really a glorified doctors- and- nurses romance, lets her display a wider acting range. she plays a bad liar, who doesn’t believe a word that comes out of her own mouth. That takes talent.

And because she’s hiding her thoughts and secrets, cath’s inner emotions never match what she says or does. she’s nervously calm

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on the outside, but a writhing mass of panic behind the mask. It’s a demanding role and Jodie manages to make it seem easy.

All her skill can’t hide the fact that the story is barely believable, stocked with characters straight out of a cheap airport paperback: the local newspaper journalist on the trail of an NHs scandal, the kindly scottish landlady who dispenses breakfast porridge and free childcare.

Writer Dan sefton, who was also behind The Good Karma Hospital earlier this year, is more at home with medical scenes. An A&e doctor who has worked for years in emergency rooms, his experience underpins the dialogue, especially the medical banter, and helps it ring true.

sometimes this can go too far, and a few scenes feel like oft-told anecdotes — such as the one where fake Dr cath has to insert a patient’s intravenous drip in a very delicate place, while trapped in a lift and surrounded by aghast visitors.

Quacks (BBc2) is packed with doctors’ tall stories too, the kind that grow in the telling after an all-day shift. But these are taken from history books — and they truly are horrific.

It’s chilling to think that, only a few generations ago, without antibiotics or anaesthetics, medical procedures carried the threat of an agonising death.

But it’s even more extraordinary to find out that some twisted mind has taken these stories and turned them into a very funny sitcom.

Quacks is bolstered by an outstanding cast, led by Rory Kinnear as a Victorian rock star surgeon. He enters the operating theatre like elton John, shrugs off his cloak, and then botches an amputation so spectacularly that the patient is castrated. As the poor man, fully conscious, sits up screaming, Rory adopts his most patronising air. ‘Please trust me,’ he says, and continues sawing.

At night, the doctors carouse with painted ladies and swig Vin Mariani, a concoction of red wine and cocaine that was the precursor of coca-cola.

Much of this excess is historically accurate, which doesn’t make it any the less funny. There’s a strong streak of Horrible Histories, the children’s show that became a cult adult hit for its surreal humour.

for some reason, it also features Rupert everett doing his best stephen fry impression. Don’t let that put you off.