BREATHTAKING

Three-part ITV drama produced by HTM Television, which launched to 5.9 million viewers and generated 7.5 million streams on ITVX, forming part of ITV Drama’s strongest start to a year in six years. The series was subsequently nominated for Limited Series and Single Drama at the 2025 RTS Programme Awards, while production designer Ashleigh Jeffers received a BAFTA Television Craft Award nomination for her work on the drama. Starring Joanne Froggatt, it was adapted from Dr Rachel Clarke’s memoir by Dr Rachel Clarke, Jed Mercurio and Prasanna Puwanarajah.

Set during the Covid-19 pandemic, Breathtaking follows acute medicine consultant Dr Abbey Henderson and her colleagues as they face the rapidly escalating crisis on the NHS frontline. As Covid patients overwhelm the hospital, staff battle shortages of PPE, beds and personnel while being forced to make increasingly impossible decisions about who can receive treatment.

As the pandemic intensifies, Abbey and her team witness the devastating consequences of inadequate protection, care-home discharges and rapidly changing government guidance, while several members of staff themselves become infected. The physical and emotional toll mounts as they struggle to save patients while confronting death on a scale they have never experienced before.

When a second wave arrives, accompanied by exhaustion, public hostility and Covid denial, Abbey reaches breaking point. Scarred by what she and her colleagues have endured, she ultimately decides she can no longer remain silent about the reality of what happened inside Britain’s hospitals and risks her career by speaking out.

Directed by Craig Viveiros and produced by Brian J. Falconer. Written by Rachel Clarke, Jed Mercurio and Prasanna Puwanarajah, with Jed Mercurio, Rachel Clarke, Prasanna Puwanarajah and Jimmy Mulville serving among the executive producers.