Adam Kay's 'This Is Going To Hurt' is 'most disgusting medical drama ever' thanks to realistic blood and guts

This Is Going To Hurt viewers have been warned to brace themselves for a series more "disgusting" than any ever made thanks to painfully realistic scenes of surgery and childbirth.

BBC One launches the TV adaptation of Adam Kay's memoirs from his junior doctor days on a labour ward tonight, and the author has revealed he was a stickler for making sure the medical scenes were completely accurate.

Read more: Adam Kay blasts 'callous' Prime Minister over partygate

He said: "I’m pretty sure no one has made a medical show that’s quite as disgusting before."

The seven-part series based on Kay's bestselling book of the same name stars Ben Whishaw as the junior doctor, who said that the cast had been given some rudimentary surgical training to keep the drama true to life.

Whishaw said: "We’ve learned how to do Caesareans. I had no idea that it was as basic a process as it is. You literally take a scalpel and slice through the flesh and then you literally put your hands in and pull the muscles apart and then you shove your fist in and grab the baby."

His co-star Ambika Mod who plays junior colleague Shruti added: "We really learned how to do a Caesarean, we really learned how to do a forceps procedure, we really learned how to do all that stuff. So when I say it's really visceral, and it's really as true to life as we could have made it."

Read more: Ben Whishaw warns of This Is Going To Hurt's 'serious political and social agenda'

Whishaw admitted that even though he knew the scenes weren't real blood and guts, he still found some of them difficult to stomach.

He said: "There was someone in A&E here, a supporting artist who was just being wheeled through the back of a shot but he had a broken leg. And it was an incredible piece of prosthetics because you saw the bone jutting out of his shin and it really, really gave me a very visceral reaction.

"There was also a scene that I particularly love when a woman wants to eat her own placenta because she’s read that it’s a good thing for her and the baby, and, well, it gets messy."

Giving an idea of the level of detail on the production, Mod said: "The way the prosthetics were put together, the way that they worked, they were so realistic. We didn't cut corners with any of the medical stuff, all the layers that would really be in a stomach and involved in that procedure, they were in there. And it was disgusting!

"You'd be surrounded every day by fake amniotic fluid and fake blood, but you just become really immune to it, so you’ll be standing there in a pool of blood, talking about what you're going to have for lunch."

Michele Austin plays senior midwife Tracy and said that viewers should be prepared for the birth scenes which are "not sugar-coated".

She said: "There was one day with one prosthetic where I did think, nobody in this room, if they don’t already have a child, is going to want one. This is now going to be the childless room! One of the actors was genuinely green - and it wasn’t make-up.

Read more: Ben Whishaw doesn't expect to return to Bond franchise

"Imagine you’re in a dentist’s chair where you’re lying back and your legs are down and on top of it sit the prosthetic legs. So what you’d have, is a situation where you’re joking with the actress, really having quite a laugh with her top half, and then the bottom half would literally be legs akimbo with a baby’s head crowning.

"Sometimes we’d take a picture for the actress because they can’t really see what’s going on down there, so it was a unique experience. I loved all of that, it made me howl."

Alex Jennings stars as Kay's boss Mr Lockhart, but said he was much more squeamish than his character.

He said: "We had rudimentary classes in suturing and learning to operate the surgical tools. I'm kind of queasy, so I was not good. I passed out when my daughter was born and was taken off to casualty, which was not my finest moment."

Kadiff Kirwan, who plays Kay's rival Julian, added: "I could give you a suture for a hysterectomy. I know how to wrap it up - I don't know how to do the surgery, but I certainly know how to wrap it up.

"It's really interesting to see how tough human flesh is - it was amazing, learning how to look like I knew what I was doing in a theatre. We spent hours and hours learning how to handle the surgical gloves, needles and thread and how to hold your scissors - it was just incredible."

This Is Going To Hurt begins tonight (Tuesday) at 9pm on BBC One.

Watch: Ben Whishaw stars as a junior doctor in new BBC drama This Is Going To Hurt