Gail is told – still live on air – that the producer/patient hanged herself an hour ago. In the final scenes, Gail follows instructions to be “more spontaneous” by calling the secure unit of a psychiatric hospital – live on air – so she can wish her former, mentally-broken producer a happy birthday. But Gail’s nose is put severely out of joint by the arrival of a new producer, who insists on pepping up the format and promoting Mike, the show’s resident doctor – played by Nick Mohammed – to permanent co-host. In the pilot, which was made in 2014, Davis plays Gail Sinclair – the queen of daytime television and host of the aptly-named magazine show, Morning! With Gail Sinclair. Delivered with the air of a mollycoddling primary school teacher who has to break tragic news – in this case, Phillip Schofield no longer presenting This Morning – Willoughby’s monologue presumed, rather patronisingly, that Schofield’s departure has left the country with a deep, emotional wound.įor some it brought to mind Morning Has Broken, the Channel 4 comedy pilot written by and starring Julia Davis and Nick Mohammed.

“Firstly, are you OK? I hope so.” Holly Willoughby’s address to the nation this week was a cringe-making moment in the This Morning drama.

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