Parminder Nagra on ITV’s New Medical Drama Maternal

New medical drama, Maternal, starring Parminder Nagra, Lara Pulver and Lisa McGrillis and written by Jacqui Honess-Martin, premieres Monday 16 January on ITV1.

The six-part drama follows three female doctors as they valiantly juggle the demanding requirements of the National Health Service (NHS) and parenting after returning from maternity leave in our post-pandemic world.

Here star Parminder Nagra tells us what to expect from the series.

Can you explain the way in which the role of Maryam came to you?
Lara Pulver and I are basically best mates and neighbours in LA. During the pandemic we’ve been doing a lot of our audition self- tapes together. So when she taped her audition to play Catherine in Maternal, I read the opposite parts – both Helen and Maryam. And during her call back, I was there off camera reading in the other roles and the director, James Griffiths, said, ‘Can I give Parminder a note?’ It made me laugh but also think, ‘How dare you? I’m not even up for this project!’ The following day, I got an email asking me to audition as Maryam. I did my audition tape with Lara’s husband, Raza Jaffrey, who is also my very good friend and who had been cast to play Jack, a surgeon and a former boyfriend of Catherine. So we took our whole kit and caboodle to Liverpool like a little family. To get a chance to work alongside my friend, Lara, who I love and respect, is just fantastic.

What can you tell us about Maryam?
She’s a paediatric registrar in a high-pressure job, and she’s going back to work after two years of maternity leave and she’s very conflicted about how she feels. She’s very good at what she does but is struggling with the conflict of being a mum and being at work, and her husband doesn’t seem to want her to go back to work. On her first week back, she’s not supposed to see patients yet, but they’re so understaffed she gets put in charge of the ward. And before she knows what’s going on she’s thrown in the deep end.

How would you describe Maryam?
I liken playing Maryam to an Alton Towers ride like Oblivion. You’re trundling along for a minute, and then you get to the top and you think it’s going to be great, but all of a sudden, it takes a deep dive in terms of emotion, and boy, do we really go there. I’d worked with the executive producer Patrick Spence before, on Fortitude, so I liked the team, and Jacqui writes very conversationally, like real people talk. It had so much going for it, and it also got me to go back home. This is where the interesting stuff is happening, and as I’m getting older, I want to go do the interesting stuff that makes me feel proud of what I’ve done.

What research did you do? Did your memories of playing Dr Neela Rasgotra on ER come flooding back?
I’m a professional doctor now, clearly! No, but I did feel like that medicine was a little bit still in there, even down to technically how to camouflage things for the camera. Like when you’re intubating [inserting a breathing tube down the throat of] a patient, you hold your hand in a certain way to mask the fact you’re not really doing it. The funniest part was that some of the terminology that I got used to saying on ER, I was told, ‘That’s not how you say it here.’ It’s pronounced differently in Britain.

As a mum yourself did you relate to Maryam’s predicament of juggling home life and an all-consuming job?
A hundred percent! And we were all doing it in real time on that show, making sure our kids were taken care of and making sure that we were still able to do our work, and then feeling guilty if we weren’t there.

But one thing that’s come out of doing this job is this: there’s a moment where Maryam’s mum, played by Shaheen Kahn – who played my mum in Bend It Like Beckham – says, ‘Have you ever considered that one feeds the other?’ That Maryam’s not just a mum, not just a doctor and that they both inform each other. And I think that’s exactly what it is for me. I like being at work, and that makes me a better mother, because I’m basically just in a better mood. Otherwise, where’s my identity gone?

Maternal premieres Monday 16 January 2023 at 9.00pm on ITV1.