Line of Duty creator pens Covid-19 drama for ITV

Line of Duty fans should get set for another high-octane and very tense TV drama. It's been announced that the police series' creator has helped pen a new Covid-19 drama for ITV.

Jed Mercurio is best known for the police procedural series which followed the antics of AC-12, the police anti-corruption unit. This time, the writer has teamed up with writer-doctor Rachel Clarke and Prasanna Puwanarajah to focus on the crisis which brought the NHS to its knees and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Starring Golden Globe award-winning actress Joanne Froggatt - best known as Anna Bates in Downton Abbey - Breathtaking is a poignant account of an NHS doctor in the eye of the storm. It's based on Rachel Clarke’s unflinching personal memoir of the greatest public health crisis in living memory.

Try MEN Premium for FREE by clicking here for no ads, fun puzzles and brilliant new features.

Jed Mercurio said: "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. 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.”

The three-part series is produced by Jed Mercurio’s independent production company, HTM Television, which has been responsible for producing Trigger Point, DI Ray, Bloodlands and the BAFTA-nominated factual drama Stephen.

Joanne said: “I feel truly honoured to be playing Dr Abbey Henderson in Breathtaking, based on Dr Rachel Clarke’s beautifully written, poignant and shocking book of the same name. When I first read the incredible