Revenge is a dish best served by Mark Bartlett: Trauma on ITV review ★★★★★

When a new drama by Mike Bartlett is announced, it's time to sit up, take note, and clear your diary.

Bartlett is the mastermind who wrote Doctor Foster on the BBC, (the jacobean inspired melodrama that won Best Drama at the National Television Awards and Best Drama Performance last month). He also wrote Charles III, which began as a five-star play on the West End before it was a five-star one off TV film for the BBC. He's good. We told you.

Trauma on ITV doesn't have a very exciting premise. Actually, it sounds like that episode of Casualty you've already seen a hundred times before. But this time, it's by Mark Bartlett – so settle down and buckle up.



The three-part psychological thriller follows two fathers: Dan (John Simm – who incredibly also stars in Collateral on BBC Two at the same time) and Jon (Adrian Leicester). Their lives collide when Dan's 15 year-old son Alex is unexpectedly stabbed and dies in the trauma department under consultant Jon Allerton's care.

'Jon. Can you honestly say you did everything you could, to save our son?' asks Dan. 'Yes,' replies the surgeon. One long look and Dan decides not to believe him. And so the time has come for what Bartlett does best: a solid bit of revenge.

The dangling question at the heart of episode one, is why Dan decides to go after the rich, ambitious trauma surgeon – who perhaps didn't do enough to save his son – but not the person who definitely contributed to Alex's death, the stabber?

But, putting that aside (and no doubt Bartlett will get around to that) this is an excellent story of malevolence, culpability and deceit. Dan brings all the cold, calculating cruelty and investigative prowess of Doctor Foster to a man hellbent on the destruction of a richer, smarter, more middle class man.

It's a shame that ITV and the BBC have decided to engage in a programming war – with both Trauma and Collateral starring Carey Mulligan airing at the same time (Monday at 9pm) because, frankly, you need to watch them both.