WITHOUT wishing to cramp the style of any pregnant ladies out there, may I humbly suggest that you give This is Going to Hurt (BBC1, Tuesday) a body swerve till the new arrival is a bit older? Say, 34?

The rest of us will have to man/woman up or miss this excellent adaptation of Adam Kay’s memoir about his time as a doctor.

When we meet Kay (played, a tad disconcertingly at first, by Ben “voice of Paddington” Whishaw), he is waking up in his car, having been too tired to drive home the night before. He is a junior in obstetrics and gynaecology, aka obs and gynae, aka another term that’s far too rude for a family paper (the first word is brats ... that's all I'm saying).

Daily life in the NHS trenches offers more stress than most of us will deal with in a lifetime. Kay copes, as do the rest of the staff, with a mixture of gallows humour, and lots of coffee.

Director Lucy Forbes shoots at a blistering pace in a freewheeling style. When it gets to what we might term the business end of giving birth, little is left to the imagination. Even the crew on Call the Midwife might blanche at some of the scenes here.

The humour is scalpel sharp, and the cast, Whishaw to the fore, perfect fits for their roles. Like the book, the drama can switch in a heartbeat from comedy to tragedy and back again without missing a beat. As nerve-shredding as it was to watch, I’ll be back.

Not saying Sheridan Smith has been on the telly a lot, but if she was to elbow Sean Batty aside and start reading the STV weather I would not be at all surprised. Her latest gig is No Return (STV, Monday), in which she once again plays a woman fighting to right a wrong. Few do pugnacious quite as convincingly as Ms Smith. She even wears an anorak aggressively.

This time the objects of her character’s disaffection are the Turkish police, who have spoiled the family holiday by arresting her teenage son, Noah, for sexual assault. Kathy (Smith) insists there has been a mistake and demands his release, but to no avail.

While Kathy’s plight provokes sympathy, the character herself is hard to like. Shouty, sweary, prone to barging in first and thinking later, you will either be cheering her on or wishing she would pipe down a minute for everyone’s sake.

Writer Danny Brocklehurst sets a few hares running in the opening episode, including raising questions about Noah’s character. And who was the slightly shady uncle visiting and why?

I don’t imagine the Turkish tourist authorities are going to like this one. While it is hardly Midnight Express – the worst thing that happens to the family initially is that they are cajoled into playing bowls on the beach by the local rep – armed police bursting into hotel rooms in the wee small hours is not a good look on any destination. Fans of Smith (and who isn’t?) will be in their element.

Chloe (BBC1, Sunday-Monday) starred a young actor in the relative foothills compared to Smith, but climbing fast.

Erin Doherty, an impressive Princess Anne in The Crown, plays Becky, a woman living a double life. In one she’s a mousy temp with a West Country accent, flitting from job to job and looking after a mum in the early stages of dementia. In the other life, she’s a glam bam thank you mam sort, just back from Japan. Super confident and posh, she can blag her way into anything, including the friendship circle of the titular Chloe, a woman she has been following obsessively on social media.

Alice Seabright’s psychological thriller suffered initially from being another in a too long series of “mad women” dramas. Yet it was more sensitively handled than most, with the scenes showing us what it was like to look at the world through Becky’s eyes particularly effective. While it often strained credibility – how many times was Becky nearly found out? – this was intriguing stuff with a star-making turn from Doherty.

The Curse (Channel 4, Sunday) had some familiar faces from the cult comedy People Just Do Nothing. The premise was similar too: a posse of small timers dream of making it big. In "People" it was the DJ and music business, in The Curse it’s robbery.

Setting the tale in 1980s London meant lots of hitting the dressing up box and plenty of East End rabbit, and the script fairly rocked along. Where it differed from People was in the smile to laugh ratio. So far, The Curse is only scoring high on the former.

Among the writer-actors is Tom Davis of spoof crime drama Murder in Successville, an American version of which is showing on Netflix and worth a look. Highlights include Sharon Stone as a trainee detective scaring the wit out of everyone, not least her fellow actors.