Laughter rang out and a few tears fell as hundreds of viewers, cast and crew gathered at an RTS Midlands event to bid farewell to the BBC soap Doctors.
Fans had travelled from as far afield as Essex and Wigan to celebrate the Birmingham-made daytime drama, set in a GP surgery and axed after nearly 25 years on screen. Memories were shared during an emotional evening, held the week before the final episode was broadcast.
The four-part series follows the precarious and life-saving work of the clinicians and call handlers who respond to emergency accidents in some of Scotland’s most wild and inhospitable landscapes.
The experts need to make time-critical decisions in harsh and extreme conditions across Scotland.
The series follows the process from the initial 999 call all the way through to when the patient leaves the hospital and resumes their normal life at home.
On a mild autumnal Saturday on 6 September 1986, the first week after the summer holidays, the nation collectively sat down in front of the telly. Viewers may have flicked between the four channels available, but most were curious about BBC One’s big new drama, Casualty.
Since the familiar, high-intensity theme tune played out that evening, those 1980s-tastic opening credits may have evolved into something more contemporary but, at its core, Casualty remains the same.
The Casualty spin-off medical drama has aired weekly since 1999, following the lives of the fictional Holby City Hospital staff.
"We sometimes have to make difficult decisions to make room for new opportunities,” said the BBC in a statement, “and as part of the BBC's commitment to make more programmes across the UK, we have taken the difficult decision to bring the show to a close in order to reshape the BBC's drama slate to better reflect, represent and serve all parts of the country.”
