Medical thriller Malpractice is back for a second season of moral dilemmas as a new investigation is opened.
The show’s writer and creator Grace Ofori-Attah has based the story on her own experience working as an NHS doctor.
With a mostly new cast, the second series is a stand-alone story that follows another investigation into malpractice in a new hospital.
Here’s all you need to know about the medical drama.
What is Malpractice about?
Series two focuses on psychiatric registrar Dr James Ford who finds himself accused of medical malpractice after devastating events following his assessment of several patients.
Dr Norma Callahan and Dr George Adjei of the Medical Investigation Unit are called in to investigate Dr Ford’s actions. His personal life begins to unravel as his professionalism is called into question.
As the investigators dig further into the events of one fateful night, what appears to be a series of poor choices by Dr Ford spreads beyond the psychiatric unit to a hospital seemingly at war with itself.
Where is Malpractice series 2 set?
This time the drama unfolds in the Yorkshire town of Harrogate, although filming took place in Belfast.
‘We are looking at a psychiatric unit attached to a hospital and we wanted to take it out to a different hospital than we had been in series one,’ executive producer Emma Luffingham tells Time Out. ‘Very often psychiatry is poked into a corner in hospitals: they usually have the oldest and most rundown buildings, and we wanted to look at the type of characters that might come through that hospital. It felt like moving to Harrogate allowed us to show the range that you could get.’
While the cast never made it to the pretty Yorkshire town, a small camera crew did film some capture drone shots of Harrogate’s landscapes.
Belfast filming locations
Belfast doubles as Harrogate for the second series of Malpractice. The production company behind the series had previously used the city to double as Brighton in its legal drama Showtrial.
However, filming in the city didn’t come without its challenge, with Belfast’s famous pink buses and yellow dockyard cranes causing logistical headaches for the crew.
Queen’s University Hospital
Queen’s University provided the perfect filming location for the shoot, with its state-of-the-art facilities used to teach the next generation of healthcare workers. An added bonus was that filming took place during the university’s summer break.
‘To be able to use a real teaching hospital was brilliant,’ says Luffingham. ‘It had everything: the equipment and the staff to appear in our medical scenes. The supporting artists were all trained staff, so when we were doing scenes with surgery they were handling the equipment in the right way. They knew where they needed to go and how things needed to be done, so that was just invaluable.’
Good Shepherd Church
An imposing Victorian building was needed to double up as the show’s psychiatric unit, allowing Malpractice to show the difference between the departments in the NHS.
‘We used a former monastery that is part of a church,’ Emma explains. ‘It was about to be closed down and be renovated into flats, but we managed to get in there [first]. Our production designer did an incredible job of turning it into a psych unit.’
In the series, green screen effects were used to be the two hospital locations look adjacent, via an opening shot that sees Dr Ford walk between the two spots in a matter of seconds.
Ulster University
Scenes set in the offices of the Medical Investigation Unit were filmed at Ulster University. Painstaking effort was made to match the interior scenes of the same setting from the first series, right down to colour of the walls in the boardrooms.
Ollie’s nightclub
The dramatic climax of episode 2 was filmed at Ollie’s Nightclub, with the shoot taking place in the morning when the venue was closed to punters.
Pumping out R&B, hip-hop, house and disco tunes, Ollie’s website promises ‘world-class DJs, mouth-watering drinks and an electric atmosphere’.
Ulster Museum & Botanic Gardens
Located within Belfast’s Botanic Gardens, the Ulster Museum’s café was used in episode 4 of the second series.
Exterior scenes were filmed in the Rose Garden for episode 5 when the investigators speak to witnesses and plead with them to go on the record about the malpractice claims.
Bert’s Jazz Bar
Located in Belfast’s The Merchant Hotel, Bert’s Jazz Bar is seen in episode 2 when investigator Dr George takes his girlfriend out on a date. IRL, the bar serves French bistro-style food and hosts live jazz gigs every night of the week.
The Muddlers Club
Named after a secret society that met at the location over 200 years ago, The Muddlers Club is a restaurant located in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. In Malpractice, it’s here that investigators George and Norma go for dinner.
Will there be a third series of Malpractice?
Fans of the medical thriller are in luck. Executive producer Emma Luffingham tells Time Out that a third season is in the offing: ‘We have plans for a third series,’ she says. ‘We’ve been cooking up some ideas, but it will all depend on ITV and the audience response.’
‘I think we want to keep it around Yorkshire and Leeds, predominantly because we want to keep those investigators and it may be that we look at a different hospital or at a different discipline of medicine.’
When is the second season of Malpractice airing?
Malpractice returns to ITV at 9pm on Sunday, May 4, with episodes 2 and 2 airing on Monday and Tuesday. The final two episodes will air the following week.
All episodes will be available to stream on ITVX.
Is there a trailer for Malpractice series 2?
Take a look at the clip below for a taste of the drama set to unfold.
Who is in the cast of Malpractice?
Helen Behan (This is England ‘88) and Jourdan Kouamé (Dope Girls) are back as Medical Investigation Unit sleuths Norma Callahan and George Adjei.
Tom Hughes (Victoria) takes on the role of Dr. James Ford, who is accused of malpractice and the subject of the investigation.
Am I Being Unreasonable star and co-creator Selin Hizli plays Dr Sophia Hernandez, working alongside Dr. Ford.
Zoë Telford (Silent Witness) plays Dr Kate McAllister, another colleague in the psychiatric unit. ‘Kate is someone who likes to operate from a place of control,’ Telford explains. ‘It was great fun to chart a course for someone who’s losing their grip on life as they want it to be.’