Mikhail Bulgakov

Sky Arts has a bit of a coup here, securing Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe to star in a knockabout version of Mikhail Bulgakov's autobiographical short stories about a young doctor in pre-Revolutionary Russia.

Everyone has decided that the short stories are funny, so the tone is breezy and jokey from the beginning, as Hamm looks back fondly at his newly graduated younger self (Radcliffe) arriving to take up his very first job, at a hospital in the snowy Russian wastes.

The doctor is immediately confronted by his hatchet-faced staff of three: two grim nurses and a weird factotum prone to elliptical conversations. Soon the central conceit evolves to the younger doctor actually engaging with his older self as the two argue and get into fights. It's all very slight, but the skill - and in the case of Radcliffe, also the charm - of everyone involved keeps A Young Doctor's Notebook bubbling along.

Jon Hamm, Daniel Radcliffe and Mikhail Bulgakov may sound like a mismatch on paper, and this adaptation of the Russian dissident's semi-autobiographical short stories is oddly pitched as a knockabout near-sitcom.

Radcliffe is anxious and amiable as the titular medic rapidly drifting out of his depth in a remote Russian hospital staffed by oddballs, visited by yokels and sitting in the shadow of his revered predecessor; Hamm is a touch more complex and sinister as his older, morphine addicted self.

It's a little too episodic and uneven, but there's definitely promise here if the writers can seize on the innate darkness at the heart of the premise. And it's wonderfully atmospheric, particularly given an obviously restrictive budget. Neither misfire nor triumph just yet, but A Young Doctor's Notebook is exactly the sort of skewed experimentation in which Sky Arts should be dabbling.

Playhouse Presents returns with a curiously unengaging story based on A Country Doctor's Notebook by the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. The four-parter concerns a young doctor (Daniel Radcliffe) who in 1917 arrives, newly graduated from Moscow, at a remote backwoods hospital. Out of his depth, he struggles with his patients' ailments and the lack of confidence shown in him by his colleague, the feldsher (a sort of medical jack of all trades, played by Adam Godley). Flash forward 17 years and we see an older version of the doctor (Mad Men's Jon Hamm) reading a diary recalling those naive adventures and conversing with his former self. A shame the uninteresting script doesn't match the talent on show.

From the operating table to the screen

Russian literary giant Mikhail Bulgakov once penned a chaotic account of his earlier career in medicine. Writer Alan Connor on how he brought it to our screens, with a little help from Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm.

Set in Russia in 1917 and based on the short stories of Mikhail Bulgakov, this might seem like a bleak prospect but far from it; starring Daniel Radcliffe as a doctor working in a small village at the start of the revolution and Jon Hamm as his older self in the Stalin era, this is very funny indeed in its bleakly provincial way, with echoes of The Irish RM and Blackadder. "We have a lot of fun round here," one of Radcliffe's new colleagues promises him on arrival. "Only last month I heard a very amusing anecdote." Take his word for it.

Video: Daniel Radcliffe & Jon Hamm interview

Mad Men's Jon Hamm and Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe talk about their roles in A Young Doctor's Notebook, the new miniseries coming to Sky Arts 1 HD on 6 December. The series is an adaptation of Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's novel of the same name. Hamm and Radcliffe reveal that they both have a true passion for the author.

Jon Hamm & Harry Potter join forces in Russian classic

A fervent passion for the work of author Mikhail Bulgakov has brought the actors together to play the same doctor in a TV series based on the writer's first book.