Real life TV drama

Every month I recommend TV programmes to a friend who has much less time than me to sort out what she’s going to watch. And every month that list is heavily skewed towards documentaries, because my patience with most TV drama is extremely limited, and although the documentaries are often sobering, they do at least deal with a life I can recognise as real.

This month, though, has been different. “The Way” came heavily hyped, with an intriguing trio of big names at its helm - actor and Welsh activist Michael Sheen, dramatist James Graham and intellectual documentary-maker Adam Curtis. A real mix, and at times a bit of a mess, but not quite like anything else you’re going to see any time soon - intense family complications, within a fractured world riven by social media and aggressive political control, set against a history of exploitation and protest. Enough to be going on with?

And then there’s Breathtaking. I’ve long been a fan of Rachel Clarke, a doctor who’s increasingly taken on the role of the writer who explains to non-professionals exactly what it’s like to work in the NHS. Someone surely has to do it. This is about Covid, and therefore involves not only the pressure of the actual work, but the added force of seeing that work lied about by the powers that be - and from that the need to protest in some way, to tell the world exactly what’s going on. So it’s as much a documentary as a drama, and maybe there’s things missing you’d want from a proper play, but it’s powerful viewing nonetheless.