Breathtaking: First look at brand new Covid-19 drama airing on ITV1

What impact Breathtaking will have on the public remains to be scene, but it does focus on a period we all lived through – the Covid pandemic. However, few of us got quite as close to the frontline of the fight against the virus as Rachel Clarke, a journalist-turned-doctor.

She’s written three books about her experiences as a medic, Your Life in My Hands: A Junior Doctor’s Story, Dear Life, A Doctor’s Story of Love and Loss, and has now turned the third, Breathtaking, her personal memoir of the pandemic, into a three-part drama. Jed Mercurio and Prasanna Puwanarajah, who both worked as doctors before turning to TV, have also contributed to the scripts.

Mercurio’s production company, HTM Television, whose previous projects include Payback, DI Ray, Bloodlands, Line of Duty and another ITV hit, Trigger Point, is behind Breathtaking.

“Everyone at HTM Television has felt privileged to dramatise Rachel Clarke’s hauntingly illuminating memoir of health workers struggling to cope with the extraordinary challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic,” says the blockbusting serial writer.

“I’m honoured to have collaborated with Rachel and Prasanna on this important drama, and thrilled to be working with a cast led by Joanne Froggatt and crew led by director Craig Viveiros.”

Froggatt plays Acute Medicine Consultant Dr Abbey Henderson, who finds herself on the frontline in the battle against the greatest public health crisis in living memory.

It’s certainly a far cry from her Golden Globe-winning performance as Anna in period drama Downton Abbey.

“I feel truly honoured to be playing Dr Abbey Henderson, based on Dr Rachel Clarke’s beautifully written, poignant and shocking book,” claims Froggatt. “When I first read the incredible scripts they moved me to tears on many occasions.

"I felt so passionately that I had to be a part of telling this story, the real story, of what was really happening behind the closed doors of the hospitals during the pandemic.

“Our NHS staff are nothing less than absolute heroes in my eyes, and I hope telling this story goes a little way towards us understanding their truth, their lived experience and honouring their unbelievable commitment and sacrifice on behalf of us all.”

The story takes place inside a fictional big-city hospital, but while names and places have been changed, what happens is, sadly, all too real.

“There is so much misinformation and rewriting of history around what really happened inside our hospitals during the pandemic,” explains Clarke. “The truth is, NHS staff gave everything they had in impossible conditions that sometimes cost them their lives.

“It is an honour to try and depict the courage and decency of my NHS colleagues on screen, and I’m so grateful to ITV and HTM Television for giving me the chance to show the public the truth.”