I can't keep it secret any longer! The Masked AMHP is excited and delighted to
reveal that his exploits are to be made into a TV series!
E4 have commissioned a major new series based on my blog.
The pitch was roughly along the lines of Call the Midwife meets Sherlock with
added AMHPs.
It’s going to be called “It Shouldn’t Happen to an AMHP”,
which I feel accurately conveys both the poignance and humour of an AMHP's life. Or at least, the Masked
AMHP's life.
I am thrilled to announce that the part of the Masked AMHP
is to be played by David Tennant (only with an English accent), while Olivia
Colman will play the Masked AMHP’s AMHP trainee, Vanessa.
It's not all been plain sailing however. I’ve been involved
in extensive and gruelling discussions with script writers and the production
team, and have reluctantly come to recognise that it will be necessary to alter
some of the factual events described in the blog in order to make it more
dramatically acceptable to a lay audience.
That is why, for example, the Masked AMHP will have a
permanent AMHP trainee, who will be called Vanessa, with him on all the
assessments he does, even though in real life I have had dozens of AMHP
trainees, who have fairly brief placements as part of their training.
This is so that the
Masked AMHP can mansplain to the rather hapless but willing to learn Vanessa the minutiae of
the Mental Health Act, rather in the way that Sherlock Holmes is always having
to explain to Dr Watson what’s going on.
The photograph accompanying this post features a scene from
the upcoming TV drama featuring the Masked AMHP and Vanessa undertaking an
assessment under the MHA. As you can see, the Masked AMHP is diligently taking
notes while interviewing in a suitable manner. Although in real life the Masked
AMHP always wears a mask when assessing people under the MHA (I find it saves
time), it was felt that it would obscure the handsomely rugged features of David Tennant.
It has also been necessary to simplify the role of the AMHP
for dramatic purposes. It was considered too complicated for every MHA
assessment to consist of an AMHP and two doctors (and of course the dim but
lovely Vanessa, who will also provide comedic relief), so most of the time the
assessments will consist only of the Masked AMHP and Vanessa.
At the end of every assessment, when the Masked AMHP has
decided that the patient has to be detained, he will announce with a cheeky
glance to camera: “You’re sectioned!”. It’s hoped that this will become a
popular catchphrase among the young people.
Some professionals watching the series may feel that
unacceptable liberties have been taken with the depiction of the AMHP role,
especially when the permanently luckless Vanessa almost invariably becomes
victim to some hilarious mishap or other, whether it be mistaking the patient
for a psychiatrist -- with hilarious consequences (and what AMHP hasn’t done
that?), being mistaken for the patient by police and ambulance crews, or simply falling into a vat of chocolate blancmange.
Well, my reply to those po-faced professionals is that it
seems to me that the only way to get a show on TV featuring AMHPs was to make
it accessible and funny, and surely sacrificing a bit of verisimilitude makes
it all worth it.
Oh, and since I’m
going to be making a sackful of cash and retiring to the South of France before
Brexit kicks in, I couldn’t really care less what those so-called professionals
think.
