Holby City – the book!

I’m excited to announce I’m writing the first ever official, by arrangement with the BBC, Holby City book!

It’s a behind the scenes look at how the show gets to our screens, from the initial story ideas to the finished article we watch every Tuesday evening. The lovely people at Holby (and they are lovely) are being brilliant about letting me poke about and ask them lots of (probably annoying) questions. I’m finding out some fascinating stuff about the massive amount of work that goes into each episode, from the scripts to the filming, the actors to post production, and loads of stuff I wouldn’t even have thought of.

The book will be published later this year. Get email updates about how it’s coming along by following this link.

Holby City news: Jemma Redgrave joins Keller

There’s going to be an interesting new addition to the Holby City cast early in the new year. Jemma Redgrave will play general surgeon Bernie (Berenice) Wolfe. Executive Producer Oliver Kent says, “When we dreamed up the character of Bernie Wolfe, we immediately thought of Jemma Redgrave and we were utterly thrilled when she agreed to join the Holby Company.”

Jemma has extensive previous fictional medical experience – from 1995-89 she played Dr Eleanor Bramwell in the TV series Bramwell, which was set in the Victoria era, and more recently she was Dr Zoe Evans in Frankie. She’s looking forward to getting her hands on a scalpel: “It will be great to be practicing medicine again, on one of the BBC’s flagship dramas,” she says. “I am so happy to be joining the cast.”

Bernie Wolfe is described as being a feisty general surgeon with battlefield experience – which will obviously come in handy for all the various power struggles she’s bound to come across in Holby. Oliver Kent says, “Bernie Wolfe will be a force to be reckoned with and I can’t wait to see her locking horns with our established regulars on the wards.”

Waterloo Road: EXCLUSIVE Interview with star Holly Jack

WARNING: This article contains spoilers which some readers may wish to avoid

It may be the last series of Waterloo Road (sob!) but there is going to be no let up in drama as the hit school based drama heads to its climax in coming weeks. In Monday’s episode, we see former shrinking violet turned outgoing fake tan-aholic Bonnie take centre stage as her desperate bid for attention backfires spectacularly. 

EastEnders: Farewell John Bardon

Very rarely in soap do you get what would be classed as a ‘golden couple’, that being a pair of characters that are so meant to be and have such on screen rapport and chemistry that they are clearly soulmates. With most pairings of soaps succumbing to affairs or killing each other within the year, it is a treat for viewers and fans to have that solid couple who, no matter what the writers would throw at them, their love would still remain.

Coronation Street’s Hayley and Roy Cropper and Vera and Jack Duckworth were prime examples of this. And so were the irreplaceable Jim Branning and his beloved Dorothy. As news reaches us that the fantastic actor behind the kindly and bumbling Queen Vic potman, John Bardon, has sadly passed away, I reflect on one of EastEnders’ most loved characters.

Jim ‘The Basher’ Branning entered the soap as a brash, cruel and violent character, portrayed convincingly by John, but it wasn’t long before the actor’s natural warmth meant that Jim could not always be written this way. John was an actor who conveyed the decency and humour that Jim became loved for, and it was only natural that the character’s progression would follow this.   

EastEnders and Coronation Street preview: What a blast!

WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS. Please do not read further if you prefer to avoid them. 

The aroma of plump sausages sizzling on the barbie, the feel of sand trickling between your toes (and the crunch of it in your sandwiches) and the blazing heat of the one solitary warm day we had are all distant memories. Our thoughts are turning from foreign holidays and ice bucket challenges to how we are going to occupy the slowly darkening evenings.

Cue the ambitious soap producer, determined to reel their temporarily errant, sun worshipping fans back in with an action packed autumn of drama. And Coronation Street and EastEnders are both really going for it this year.  

BBC Three: Still a magic number

With today’s announcement that licence payer funded channel BBC3 is for the axe, social media is divided about whether the cost cutting move is the right one. Whilst I’m all for brand new up and coming talent being denied opportunities so that Eastenders can have more car crashes, it has to be said that BBC3 has dished up some decent (and admittedly not so decent) material in the past.

Our Man In The North is donning his nostalgia hat and taking a reflective look back at some of the shows born of BBC3. Shows as globally popular as Little Britain, Gavin and Stacey, Torchwood and Anthea Turner’s Perfect Housewife (No? Just me then…) made their humble beginnings on the channel and, whilst Snog Marry Avoid suggests otherwise, BBC3 is undeserved of its reputation as a peddler of trash TV.

For every Don’t Tell The Bride (which incidentally gave me some GREAT ideas for my own wedding. Dressing the sisters in law as goblins was inspired) there was a fantastic documentary such as Tough Young Teachers, Tourettes: I Swear I can Sing, Young Soldiers and Growing Up With Downs. Far from being the inane programming BBC3 was famed for, the documentaries that were hidden amongst the schedules could be deep, moving, thought provoking and groundbreaking and, whilst a scroll down their documentary history presents other titles such as Eastenders Sweethearts: The Story of Sonia and Martin, Britain’s Worst Teeth and Table Dancing Diaries (in which paperback journals give some very erotic lap dances, I assume), there have been some true gems.  

Holby City news: Stockholm episode will explore Hanssen’s past

Excellent news for fans of Henrik Hanssen (ie everybody). On 8th January there’ll be a special Holby episode set in his native Sweden. Jac Naylor is sent to track down the Swedish Scalpel to discover why he’s blocking funding to the hospital.

In what Justin Young describes as “one of the most ambitious episodes Holby’s ever made,” we’ll get to find out more about Hanssen’s background and his past, why he suddenly went missing and whether he’ll be returning to Holby. An “epic, cinematic” episode is promised, which sounds like it’ll be as good as last year’s lovely visit to Kiev.

Posted by PLA          (more Holby City here)