Birmingham Evening Mail – January 12, 1999
HOLBY CITY (BBC1, 8.10pm)
IF YOU think the title of this new medical drama series has a familiar ring to it, then you’ve got the whole idea in one.
There will be no messing about with this Casualty spin-off – the aim is for viewers to feel as if they’re meeting an old friend right from the off.
Just look at the ultra-familiar ring to the cast, for starters.
There’s Michael French – David Wicks from EastEnders – and Angela Griffin who played Fiona Middleton in Coronation Street.
Phyllis Logan is also on board – best known for playing Lady Jane in Lovejoy – not to mention former Brookside star, Nicola Stephenson.
As Margaret the nanny in her former life, she shared an infamous lesbian kiss with Anna Friel….
The aim of Holby City is not to replace Casualty, but to run alongside it – rather like Z Cars spawned Softly Softly in the 60s and 70s.
Instead of being based in the accident and emergency department, this is a ward-based show.
The new series introduces the close-knit team who work in and around Darwin ward – a world of operating theatres, life-saving heart transplants, long-term care for coma patients and bed shortages.
Leading the surgical team is consultant Anton Meyer (George Irving) whose tongue is as sharp as his scalpel. His opposite number, vying for beds on the ward for her medical patients, is consultant Muriel McKendrick (Phyllis Logan).
Michael French is surgical registrar Nick Jordan and Dr Kirstie Collins (Dawn McDaniel) is a gifted senior house officer in danger of being tripped up by her ambition.
Under pressure
Fresh out of medical school, house officer Dr Victoria Merrick (Lisa Faulkner) is under intense pressure as she learns the ropes, whilst the arrival of new ward sister Karen Newburn (Sarah Preston) unsettles Nick Jordan.
Nurses Jasmine Hopkins (Angela Griffin) and Julie Fitzjohn (Nicola Stephenson) are best friends until their friendship is tested when they compete for a job promotion. Leading the team of writers is Tony McHale – a veteran of both Casualty and EastEnders .
Holby City is being filmed in 13 parts Elstreee next to the famous Albert Square set. The style of the signs has been copied from the set of Casualty which is still going to be filmed in Bristol. Cast members from Casualty will make some early guest appearances to encourage the feeling of continuity.
Taking French leave
MICHAEL French is back at Elstree doing what he does best.
Having won himself a reputation as a screen love rat, playing the seductive but self-serving David Wicks in EastEnders, his famously roving eyes will again be used to good effect as his new character Nick Jordan in Holby City.
“Yes, Nick’s got a past,” he laughs. “And no doubt it will be a dark past which will hopefully come back to haunt him…
“I’d say that Jordan was more compassionate, more human than David Wicks, though. “Like most blokes, he sometimes treats women as playthings – if they’re willing.
“A little bit of hanky-panky is all part of the human condition, after all!
“On one level, having sex is a natural release, especially in such a highly stressful and responsible job as Nick Jordan’s.
“But he would love to find the perfect woman somewhere, someone who understands him and cares about him.”
Looking back at his exciting days as nasty Wicks, he adds: “It was playing an extreme, that is the fun side of acting, playing the opposite of what you really are.
“I believe in the magic of this business, creating worlds that people can believe in.”
Since he quit Albert Square, Michael has starred in the spoof series Crime Traveller, and he says it has all been good grounding for Holby City.
