When Ambika Mod was cast in This Is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay’s TV adaptation of his diaries as a junior NHS doctor, it was late 2020 and health workers were facing a new Covid wave. “It felt like, now more than ever, it was an important story to tell,” she says. “I was filled with fear because of the sheer responsibility.”
Mod plays Shruti Acharya, a junior doctor under the tutelage of Adam (played by Ben Whishaw). “It’s so rare to see a well-written, complex, young south Asian female character,” she says. “Her arc is so brilliant.” The character is an amalgamation of people Kay worked with. “I share a lot in common with Shruti,” says Mod. “We’re both young Indian women, we’re both children of immigrants, so Adam was really receptive to my thoughts. I remember him saying: ‘If Shruti doesn’t make sense to you, she’s not going to make sense to anyone.’”
The series, set on the obstetrics and gynaecology ward of a London hospital in 2006, follows Adam and Shruti as they negotiate an under-resourced NHS. We see, in excruciating detail, the personal sacrifices staff are expected to make.
The pandemic meant shadowing real doctors was impossible. Instead, Mod read books and articles, watched documentaries, listened to podcasts, and called friends of friends who are currently junior doctors.
She was struck by the physical toll the job takes: “They will often not pee for 12 hours, they might not drink any water, or they won’t have sat down from the moment they start their shift to the moment they finish. Those minute details really helped when we were on set.”
Visceral scenes show the doctors’ exhaustion (Shruti studying through the night, Adam asleep at his steering wheel), how that can lead to compassion fatigue and compromised decision-making, and the way intrusive thoughts can haunt you when things go wrong at work. “Tiredness is not something to be underestimated,” Mod says. “In Shruti’s case, it’s a large factor in her mental decline.”
It’s heavy stuff. Yet this is Mod’s first serious acting role. Until Shruti came along, she was a comedian. “I’ve wanted to be an actor since I was a kid, but I found comedy and it swept me away,” she says. She was part of the Durham Revue (“like the Durham version of the Footlights”), whose alumni include Nish Kumar, and it was there that she discovered: “There’s no better feeling than standing on stage and making people laugh.”
After university, she got a day job and did standup and improv at night, plus sketch comedy with Andrew Shires under the moniker Megan from HR. A successful Edinburgh fringe in 2019 saw their seance-themed show scouted by Soho theatre. Their style is “really silly”, she says. “We’ve never gravitated towards big issues … our objective is to just make people laugh.”
This Is Going to Hurt, despite tackling racism, abusive relationships and mental health crises, is cut through with a dark humour familiar to medical professionals. “Comedy was definitely my way into this role,” Mod says. “Shruti is nowhere near the funniest character in the show but it was about finding moments where I could add levity.”
In live comedy you’re often doing everything yourself. Playing Shruti, Mod was one piece of a puzzle. Whishaw helped her acclimatise: “He was everything that you would want the voice of Paddington to be. He’s so talented, lovely and humble. In the same way that Adam took Shruti under his wing, he really looked after me. I mean, in a much kinder way!”
Shruti’s storyline is intense, but experts were provided to help Mod understand her character’s mindset. Medical details had to be realistic, too. There were three medical advisers on set, while the prosthetics team created convincing components of childbirth, surgery and bloodshed. To portray a forceps delivery, the actor playing the mother lay on the top half of a bed with her legs hidden, and a fake lower body was installed: “It looked like her legs and her vagina. You would never have guessed it wasn’t real.”
Shruti conducts multiple caesareans, so Mod had the chance to mimic the procedure. “All the layers that would be in a real body, we actually had to cut through. I loved that. Whenever I was going to do a caesarean I was buzzing.” Some viewers have been shocked by the graphicness: “But childbirth is not an aesthetic experience. It is messy and gory.”
After filming, Mod returned to standup, where she does “self-deprecating” material. She loves it but realised being a full-time comedian is not her goal. “I did have a bit of an identity crisis. Am I a comedian? Am I an actor?” she says. “But in my heart of hearts, I really do want to be an actor.” Many writer-performers such as Rose Matafeo, Mae Martin and Aisling Bea have created their own hugely successful TV shows recently. “That’s something I hope to pursue some day,” she says.
Until then, Mod’s being bombarded with messages about This Is Going to Hurt. Those from NHS staff are “humbling”, with many praising the accuracy of the show. “That means the world. That was our intention first and foremost. Obviously, you want to make good television, but this show is so much bigger than any of us.”
This Is Going to Hurt is on BBC iPlayer.
