'HELP' STARRING JODIE COMER & STEPHEN GRAHAM
Channel 4 returns with another powerful piece of television.
New drama ‘Help’ centres itself around the Coronavirus
pandemic in its height as it first emerged in 2020. The two hour long drama is
set in a fictional care home in Liverpool in the spring, and follows a carer
(Jodie Comer) as she bonds with a patient (Stephen Graham), as the pandemic
hits she is put to the test in horrific circumstances.
This vital one off television creation shares insight into
the impact Coronavirus had on care homes during its initial onset and looks at
the undervalued care workers whose job was to keep the patients going. Its
necessity comes with its strength at shining a light on the hard work and
voices of those that continued to work and care during such a difficult and
uncertain time, recognising how important the work is that these carers do and
raising awareness around that.
Such a harrowing topic is often difficult to watch, but
equally enlightening to really
delve into the challenges and intensity they had to face. The acting is
phenomenal, particularly from actors Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham who
continue to deliver detailed and faultless performances in every role they
play.
It follows Jodie Comer in the role
of young carer Sarah. Coronavirus has not yet reached the UK, and she has just
applied for a new job in a fictional Liverpool care home. She is displayed as a
little rough around the edges, the show pushes the message that the kind of
skills you need to be a good care worker are personal, emotional and physical,
not necessarily the kind of things you learn in the classroom. Stephen Graham
plays a resident in the care home, a young man with young onset Alzheimer’s.
Being set in Liverpool, both actors are speaking with their native accents.
Graham said, "It takes a
special kind of human being to be a carer, I've had children, had to change my
children, wash and bathe them, that's one thing. But to do that for an older
person, someone who's coming maybe towards the end of their life, you're trying
to make their days as comfortable as can be. For someone to do that day in, day
out, and not just the practical but the humane aspect - maybe you're the only
person George and Janet see all day. You're their source of the outside world,
their communication. And this is what's so beautiful about our story, we see
Sarah come alive. Maybe she wasn't the most gifted academically, maybe she
wasn't going to change the world with her brain, but she's changing somebody's
life." It’s this that makes this drama such an honest and moving watch.
Written by Jack Thorne, the first
part of the film follows Sarah adapting to her new job, as she does she
develops a particular connection with Tony (Stephen Graham). There’s only a few
references to Covid at this stage, but then things start to quickly change and
progress. Multiple residents catch the virus and there is a shortage of staff
as many of Sarah's colleagues have to self-isolate.
There is an incredible sequence
where Sarah is left working by herself on a night shift. She works solidly for
20 hours, with no other staff around, struggling to cope as one Covid-ravaged
resident finds it increasingly difficult to breathe. This scene was filmed in
an unbroken, 25-minute single take. The camera follows her as the nightmare
unfolds around her.
Jodie Comer said, "I think
that big sequence was probably the most difficult for us all.” "And Marc
Munden, (the director) really pushed me on that, I remember there was a moment,
we'd done this whole take and I was so in my own head and I was like, 'I think
we've got it,' and Marc was like, 'No, we're going to do one more,' and I was
like, 'Uhh, okay.' And we did it again, and the moments we got in that second
take we never would have got in the first. And I think Marc was phenomenal at
that, knowing when to push you that little bit more. That was probably the most
difficult for all of us, because we had to huddle together and act as a
team."
Writer Jack Thorne said he felt
passionately that the programme should stick up for care workers, "There
were carers who felt responsible for the crisis, and that was the bit that felt
unforgiveable for me," he says. "Carers are massively undervalued,
and they were massively undervalued during the pandemic."
Director Marc Munden adds: "We
were talking to people who hadn't had time to grieve, and they felt
responsible, but they also felt they'd been betrayed, and that was really
upsetting. Because it hadn't stopped by the time we'd started the research. I
do feel the government completely betrayed the care sector compared with the
NHS."
Jack Thorne adds, “Hearing the
stories of those at the frontline, having people break down in tears on zoom in
front of us has been incredibly moving and galling. Getting the story right
will be incredibly important, we are aware of the pressure upon us, this has to
be written and made with anger and precision. We hope we do it justice.”
And they certainly do in my opinion, another moving yet sensitive piece that I recommend viewing.
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