Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
I think if I hadn’t done medicine, I’d probably have been a musician. Medicine insists that you have all these extracurricular interests and for me, that was mostly music and I really loved music. I wonder if I’d be writing for the piano right now, writing dots rather than writing words.’ If offered, would you accept the position of secretary of state for health in the new prime minister’s cabinet? Despite being in the same profession, I was traumatised by your description of a young man whose penis was degloved after he slid down a lamp-post. Did you go too far? How do you manage to draw the line between comedy and tragedy in your work? Speaking of Whishaw, Kay is of course a fan of the actor cast to play the fictionalised version of Adam (who the author reminds us isn’t really him).
MORE : Simon Callow reflects on the enduring popularity of Four Weddings and a Funeral: ‘The cast knew it would be our fault if it wasn’t a success’
Who is in the cast of Adam Kay: Undoctored - This Is Going to Hurt… More?
I just started work in foundation year 1 and didn’t realise it would be this brutal. I’ve been a doctor for about a week-and-a-half and have already worked 120 hours, told someone’s family that their relative is going to die soon, verified two deaths and cried on the way home more times than not. I know you eventually left medicine, but does this next bit get any easier? Also, any tips for getting out of medicine?
When I was writing her dialogue, I had Harriet Walter in my head. I didn’t actually think that Harriet would say yes, because she’s Dame Harriet Walter!’ I wrote This is Going to Hurt with a beginning, middle and end. I wanted it to be about the mental health of healthcare staff. I did what I set out to do and made a taboo subject an unmissable conversation. I have no plans for a second series, I’d hate to do one for the sake of it. But I am in the early stages of a new project which will hopefully become something, and, if it does, will be very different but, hopefully, people will watch it. It took Covid: I offered and it turned out they didn’t want a gynaecologist who hadn’t worked for a decade. I will doubtless return when I reach my expiry date as an author, as all authors do. I suspect I’ve done my last shift on a labour ward but I think I potentially have something to give in education or policy within the service.
Important Notes
The thing that I thought as soon as I started watching the rushes come together, and then a bunch of doctors have said to me, is I can’t believe they’re not actually doctors, midwives and nurses, because they just embodied it so well. I think Ambika in particular, for someone who had basically done practically nothing on-screen before – she’s just such an intelligent, nuanced actor.’ He didn’t want to be a doctor, but he became one. He didn’t want to be a straight married man, but he became one: he married a woman. He plotted adultery – he took a comedy gig in New Zealand so he could go to a gay sauna – and was raped there. He developed bulimia after a fellow doctor – a psychiatrist no less – called him “a big lad” when they slept together. It opens with a nightmare: his recurring nightmare of a baby he cannot save. But that is only the first of his agonies. His prat falling is vast in its scope, the self-destruction of an artist.
On a more serious note, he reveals that the point where Whishaw as Adam goes infront of the General Medical Council and quotes the statistic that one doctor every three weeks in the UK takes their life, he is using Kay’s exact words. Write down what it is you want to do at the bottom of a piece of paper, and then see if you can work on what the steps are to getting there. That’s what Kay does: bodies exploding. But Undoctored is also – and I do not know how conscious this is – an exploration of the comic personality type. Comics explode too: with words; with rage. The most distressing part of the book is his description of being raped in a sauna in New Zealand. He cut this episode out “about 20 times” before steeling himself to go ahead with it. The clincher, once again, was the hope that including it might help others to seek help. He puts his head briefly in his hands. “I know it will cause me grief in all sorts of ways. I know what social media is like, I know I’m going to have to answer questions about it for ever. But I was writing a book about being honest … Time will tell if it was the right decision.”
You excellently highlighted the toll taken on the mental health of staff given the job pressures. What changes would you want to see that will have an impact on improving staff mental health and make them feel safe to report problems? I’ve had a bunch of messages from people who said, “I’ve read that book and now I feel empowered to press the ‘f**k it’ button”, to do the thing to blow up their life and leave the thing in their world that isn’t working for them,’ he told Metro.co.uk.
It’s difficult not to despair but is there anything in the current situation with the NHS that gives you hope?
The mood music isn’t that there’s going to be a huge amount of extra money going into the NHS anytime soon, what with everything going on. So God bless everyone who’s working in the NHS at the moment. I really don’t know how they’re doing it.’ You’re made health secretary tomorrow. Truss won’t give you any more money. What’s the very first thing you will do? Ben did the most spectacular job, he’s a national treasure. He can dance between comedy and drama and brings huge warmth to a character who is deliberately written as not always behaving the best under the circumstances he is in. If you were casting yourself, why wouldn’t you choose someone as handsome as Ben Whishaw? But if it wasn’t Ben, I suspect the answer I’m supposed to give is … Jonathan Ross. Kay is still a big supporter of the medical community, despite having hung up his scrubs (Picture: Dusty Miller)
Great Deal 
New Comment