Holby City is an offshoot of Casualty set in Holby City hospital’s Darwin, Kellor and maternity wards. It’s fantastic almost like a soap opera with the occasional patient. The staff have so many dramas and relationships with each other it’s amazing more of the patients don’t die of neglect, ... Read review
Advantages: great storylines, Disadvantages: bit too soap like
Holby City is an offshoot of Casualty set in Holby City hospital’s Darwin, Kellor and maternity wards. It’s fantastic almost like a soap opera with the occasional patient. The staff have so many dramas and relationships with each other it’s amazing more of the patients don’t die of neglect, because the nurse is involved in a round of long lingering looks and hushed, urgent conversations in a side office.
I’ve been watching it for a ... ...wise, I’ve not noticed any potential oscar performances from the cast, although some of the bereaved extras put in a good performance, There are some stereotypes in the cast of characters: arrogant but brilliant surgeons, good time girl nurses and brilliant doctors who don’t have much of a bedside manner.
So here are the characters
Tom Campbell-Gore Is the surgical consultant and top of the tree. He is arrogant, cold ... more
Holby City is an offshoot of Casualty set in Holby City hospital’s Darwin, Kellor and maternity wards. It’s fantastic almost like a soap opera with the occasional patient. The staff have so many dramas and relationships with each other it’s amazing more of the patients don’t die of neglect, because the nurse is involved in a round of long lingering looks and hushed, urgent conversations in a side office.
I’ve been watching it for a good couple of months now and it’s strangely addictive. Acting wise, I’ve not noticed any potential oscar performances from the cast, although some of the bereaved extras put in a good performance, There are some stereotypes in the cast of characters: arrogant but brilliant surgeons, good time girl nurses and brilliant doctors who don’t have much of a bedside manner.
So here are the characters
Tom Campbell-Gore Is the surgical consultant and top of the tree. He is arrogant, cold and ruthless, but a brilliant surgeon. He has a frosty working relationship with Ric Griffin who wanted his job and doesn’t like the way he works. He is an alcoholic who has recently started drinking again and collapsed during surgery because of being very drunk. He has also been having trouble with his black sheep junkie brother.
Chrissie Davis Ward sister and hospital good time girl who has worked her way round most of the eligible males. She’s extremely efficient at her job and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. She had an affair with Alistair (a doctor who has since left). She resumed an affair with Owen which had broken up his marriage. Owen left his wife for a second time to be with Chrissie, she’s now pregnant but the baby may be Ed Keatings conceived after a brief fling together. Chrissie marries Owen but there may well be trouble ahead.
Owen Davis Consultant obstetrician. He’s ambitious and good at his job. In the past an affair with Chrissie nearly destroyed his marriage, when he finds himself working with her at Holby, he can’t fight his attraction and they end up living together and then marrying. He is unaware that the baby she is carrying may not be his.
Ric Griffin Has a bit of a power struggle going on with Tom. Also he has a turmounulous personal life like so many other at holby city. He has had several wifes and has several different children from his different wives. He nearly married Diane and Sam (a doctor who has since left)
Alex Adams Surgical registrar. He’s very ambitious and has temporarily left to work on a research programme with Anton Meyer. He had a relationship with Sam which broke up after she spiked his drink which led to a drink driving charge. He stole Sam away from Ric on the eve of their wedding day. Also he had a fling with Jess Griffin which led to her getting pregnant and then aborting the baby.
Jess Griffin Student Nurse. Daughter of Ric Griffin, fell for Alex who left her pregnant and broken hearted.
Dianne Lloyd Surgical registrar She’s tough and ambitious. She’s had a relationship with Ric and almost married him in the past, they’re close and still flirt together. She had a fling with Danny that didn’t work out
Danny Shaughnessy Student nurse. He’s Kath’s son and has a bit of a rocky love live. He had a fling with Dianne that didn’t work out. He thought he’d found happiness with immigrant Maria, but she went back to her presumed dead husband who suddenly appeared in Holby. He slept with Lisa, but after his mum is arrested for her dad’s murder they are at loggerheads
Kath Shaughnessy sister on Keller ward. She’s calm and good with patients. A devout catholic, she went through a huge crisis when leaving her husband who beat her up. She fell for a priest, but fought her feelings. She fell for Terry, Lisa’s terminally ill dad and helped to end his life when he asked her. She’’s been arrested for murder after Lisa got her dad’s body dug up and post mortened Lisa Fox Midwife. She’s very competent at her job, direct and strong willed. She had a stormy relationship with Mubbs after she realised he wouldn’t commit to her. She slept with Danny. After her dad died she suspected Kath of helping him along and has got his body dug up for a post morten
Mubbs Hussein Obstetrics registrar. He’s ambitious, arrogant and go getting in his professional and personal life, He’s had a thing with Lisa and two timed an ex nurse with her mother
Ed Keating Registrar. He’s a protege of Tom and admires him greatly. He is in a bit of a tight spot recently with some unorthodox surgery they have carried out together on Tom’s junkie brother’s mates. His affair with Chrissie has led to him maybe being her baby’s father.
Ben Saunder Midwife. He’s seeing the gay security guard from Casualty which is an excellent cross over between the two programmes.
Sandy Harper Junior staff nurse. She’s caring, considerate and good with patients. She often gets on the wrong side of her strict boss Chrissie. She had an unreciprocated crush on Alex and feelings for Ben before she knew he was gay. Seems to be attracted to unsuitable men.
Phew so thats the cast of Holby City and their rather complicated love lives. Wouldn’t fill you with hope if this was a real hospital! There is always at least two different affairs going on at the same time. It must be the long hours they work which stops them finding partners outside the hospital! The big on going storylines at the moment are Kath’s killing of Terry Fox in an effort to stop his pain in last Tuesday’s episode she is arrested and I foresee a lengthy court case. Also the paternity of Chrissie’s baby is likely to be an explosive revelation in the future. Sandy has been unknowingly date raped by a friend of her horrible ex boyfriend. Past explosive story lines have been Alex’s drink driving charge, a murder of doctor, chrissie’s affair with an ex doctor and Tom’s brother’s friends kidnapping him and forcing him to perform ad hoc operations with household equipment on a man injured in an armed robbery.
Patient storylines are just as dramatic, but are condensed into one episode. The maternity ward is often the scene of dark secrets. You don’t see many happy nuclear families. A favourite storyline is a baby whose father isn’t the women’s partner, the father is usually a shocker the man’s best friend or even one of the woman’s pupils at school. Problems with mother and child are frequent, Last Tuesday’s episode saw a lesbian mother die in childbirth and a single mum give birth in a toilet, the waltons it aint!
No hospital drama would be complete without long drawn out gory surgical procedures and there are plenty of them. Along with tense words over the operating table and professional differences of opinion.The medical stuff is absorbing, because there’s always shocks in the storyline. It’s not as predictable as it sounds, you do find some real twists in the storylines. Holby City is pure escapism the tangled lifes of it’s cast make compelling viewing it’s almost like watching Eastenders
Advantages: Anton Mayer, Mr Mayer, the stuck up guy Disadvantages: Some of it is naff
Mr Anton Mayer, Head of Department and wonderfully gifted heart surgeon, with all the warmth and compassion of a refrigerator and the comforting bedside manner of Hannibal Lecter. Mike Barratt, cuddly, approachable, warm as toast, but ever likely to get emotionally involved.
These twin pillars of medical excellence are the framework upon which the soapy happenings of Holby City are strung, like fluttering, insipid birds, twittering dreamily through ... ...core, factually based surgical episodes are daubed gaudily and gorily across our senses.
Mayer is so tautly and skilfully drawn as the cold blooded, calculating epitome of professionalism, that you can't help but admire his excellence as a BASTARD. He's a masterpiece of unpleasantness, but you know you'd be safe in his hands, unlike the easily riled and distracted Barratt. However, he wouldn't be your favourite colleague down the pub with his detachment ...
dave27 09.10.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Holby City
Advantages: gripping storylines, realistic, well acted, great cast Disadvantages: only on once a week
What do you want from a good drama series on TV ? Personally, I like a collection of central characters, whose characters develop through the series, whose lives we get to follow. I like intelligent scripts, interesting storylines, a good cast and a programme that is so well acted that you slip away from reality and really begin to believe in it all. Holby City fulfils each of those criteria. It is surely one of the best programmes on TV at the moment.
... ...although not every week now. I first saw Holby City as a weaker programme, a way for the Casualty production team to re-use the sets and make some extra money for themselves. But that was not the case for long. I was soon hooked and now believe Casualty to be the poor relation.
The core cast is based on three former soap actresses - Angela Griffin (ex-Coronation Street), Lisa Faulkner and Nichola Stephenson (both formerly in Brookside). The wonderful ...
KarenUK 18.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Holby City
Advantages: Great drama Disadvantages: a bit bloody
...of the TV, tune to BBC1 at around 7.50pm, and you will be viewing Holby City.
Holby City is the spin off medical drama from the hit BBC show ‘Casualty’. I love them both! (Casualty as you are probably aware, is set in the A & E department of Holby City). I can’t say how realistic they are-as I have never worked in the health service, but I guess they must be similar to real life.
Holby City is based on two wards Otter (a children’s ... ...ward we have Janice Taylor (Siobhan Redwood) a consultant paediatrician who has been pregnant at least twice in the last few months (courtesy of infertility treatment). Janice is married to another consultant surgeon at the hospital Alistair (Dominic Jephcott), who just happens to be having a ward sister Chrissie Williams (Tina Hobley) (complicated isn’t it?) However the ward sister (Chrissie) doesn’t want the affair to carry on – ...
beckystar 09.01.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Holby City
Advantages: Another hospital drama Disadvantages: that is somehow missing the mark
Take a long draught, It is cold, it is fizzy yet somehow there is a disappointment. You cant put your finger on it. It bugs you. You know it is a lager but somehow it isn't. You want a lager but you don't want another one of these. That is right, it is Kaliber. The lager that isn't. You know how disappointing it is, like sex with a condom. It is like WWF wrestling or a Mike Tyson Lennox Lewis news conference. It is not all that it seems. Holby City ... ...It has actors that play doctors and nurses. It has actors that are patients and have diseases. It is a spin off of Casualty, but it is somehow disappointing. I have worked many years, more than I care to remember, in hospitals. I have seen many patients and worked with many doctors and nurses. Unlike Casualty, Holby city just seems to miss the reality mark. I cannot say why exactly. Maybe it is the mispronunciation of the names of things, maybe it ...
cabletow 30.01.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Holby City
...thirsty. Where as Holby City is dramatic, slower, and less b lood thirsty. It portrays typical life in a busy ward, showing how the nurses cope with the stresses and strains of each day. And how they work. The series is screened on BBC1 at 8.10pm on Tuesday’s. ...
dabmim 25.04.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Holby City
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Advantages: good drama Disadvantages: sometimes unrealistic
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Advantages: Some great programmes, no adverts, high quality news reporting Disadvantages: some weak slots filled with mediocre programmes
hasn’t managed to persuade the BBC to make a new series, but we live in hope.
So, let’s put the past back where it belongs and look at the channel now to assess what it currently has to offer. I listed my favourite ten programmes, the ones I consider pretty much unmissable – one was on Channel 4, six on ITV and only three on BBC1.
These three are HolbyCity, Casualty and EastEnders. I am sure this is not coincidental, as the Beeb has always had a reputation for producing good quality drama series. I think these three are excellent programmes, all containing talented actors, well written scripts and great storylines. They seem to have a big enough budget to make them look professional and a well finished product.
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