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Breathtaking on ITV1: The truth about whether Dr Abbey Henderson is based on a real person

Joanne Froggatt portrays Abbey Henderson in the brilliant ITV drama Breathtaking, but is the character real? Who is writer Rachel Clarke?

Breathtaking on ITV1 is a hard-hitting dramatisation of how NHS medics coped during the Covid-19 pandemic – but is Joanne Froggatt ‘s character Dr Abbey Henderson a real person? The drama stars Joanne Froggatt in the role of a frontline hospital consultant – and all accounts are based on doctor-writer Rachel Clarke’s unflinching personal memoir of the greatest public health crisis in living memory. She says: “As the pandemic unfolded, I knew from very early on when those awful haunting images started to appear from China and then from Northern Italy that this virus was going to have a catastrophic effect in the UK.”

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