Joanne Froggatt Instagram – A huge thank you to Ben Dowell @thetimes for this insightful and candid look at our upcoming drama. I feel so passionate about this project and about telling the real story, behind the story, we as the public were told. 🙏 The Times delves inside ITV’s upcoming series ‘Breathtaking’ – the Covid drama penned by Jed Mercurio, palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke and Prasanna Puwanarajah, and starring Joanne Froggatt as the lead. Per Ben Dowell at The Times: ‘It’s March 3, 2020, 20 days before the first national lockdown, and Joanne Froggatt’s fictional hospital medic Dr Abbey Henderson prepares for her shift as the broadcast airwaves mutter darkly about a new illness called coronavirus. The PPE equipment doesn’t fit — it seems designed for men, she remarks grimly, before a colleague tells her she can buy her own equipment on Amazon. As patients die because doctors don’t have the right protection to be allowed to resuscitate them, the real health secretary, Matt Hancock, and the prime minister, Boris Johnson, are seen talking bullishly about the nation’s preparedness for the disease and the readiness for the fight.’ ‘ It is perhaps easier to hear stories of people dying in the back seats of Uber cabs, or little girls coming to see their mum for the last time, or unprotected nurses dying of Covid, but to watch it played out is something else. It certainly had an impact on Froggatt, an actress who often plays put-upon characters but cried reading the scripts. “I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before, actually,” she tells me.’ Breathtaking will air on ITV1 in February. • • • • • #joannefroggatt #breathtaking #thetimes #jedmercurio #rachelclarke #covid #nhs #itv #prasnapuwanarajah #craigViveros