We at the 主播大秀 love a Doctor – Doctor Who, Doctor Foster, Doctor Watson, and, for 15 years, since 26 March 2000, a whole practice in the fictional Midlands town of Letherbridge whose stories are brought to our screens in the lunchtime serial drama, Doctors.
After the , shown in September, had died down, we took a trip to the 主播大秀 Drama Village in Selly Oak – which itself is celebrating its 10th birthday this year, to take snoop around the Doctors set and meet executive producer Mike Hobson, who was our own personal tour guide for the day.
Whilst being shown in to Selly Oak’s Drama Village to meet Mike, we were struck by the stark contrast with New Broadcasting House’s glass frontage and the wood panelling and cosy fireplace of Archibald House reception, replete with a cabinet full of RTS Awards for shows made at the Selly Oak production facility.
No stranger to awards herself, we bumped in to, who plays GP Niamh Donoghue, checking her schedule in the production office.
Doctors employs a huge number of actors and supporting artists, giving many their first role on television, including a young Eddie Redmayne in 2003 (pictured above). In a recent ”
Obviously the actors look ‘terrible’ when they come in at 7am, luckily there’s a team of make-up artists ready and waiting to make them look gorgeous.
The costume department are kept busy dressing characters in and out of uniform (we saw many epaulettes). They design all the costumes in-house, even wedding dresses and Halloween masks.
The huge room is full of trousers, shirts, hi-vis jackets, dresses, waistcoats and a big bag of Dr Heston Carter’s neck attire.
Here is one of the ties in action (above), adorning Owen Brenman who plays Heston, pictured with Lorna Laidlaw (Mrs Tembe). It turns out Matt Smith isn’t the only Doctor who thinks that bow-ties are cool.
The programme works on storylines up to six months ahead, sometimes storylines are shot weeks apart, so continuity is important. Props need to be checked. These are the doctors’ bags for the actors, who were filming on the day we visited.
From contraception to pregnancy tests, the surgeries are equipped with authentic medical props
...and personal belongings (Doctor Daniel Grainger’s desk).
Taking this picture we worried slightly we might have turned into vampires due to lack of reflection, but Mike explained the internal surgery windows don’t have any glass in them – for exactly that reason - so we don’t see reflections in the shot
…and those shots are put into order in an edit suite, like this one. The cast and crew shoot around 15 minutes of footage a day on set, plus they film on location as well.
From 2000-2005, Doctors was filmed at Pebble Mill, 主播大秀 Birmingham’s base in Edgbaston. When the show moved to Selly Oak, due to the closure of Pebble Mill, the transition in location was explained by an explosion at the original Riverside Surgery. The Mill Health Centre was therefore constructed, and was so realistic, there was interest from members of the public who wanted to sign up to the surgery, as it was: ‘closer than the one they use’.
After lunch in the working canteen (it doubles as the Health Centre and Police Station canteen as well as a place for actors and crew to eat) we were lucky enough to watch Lorna and Owen read through, block and rehearse their scene. In the background, director Matt Carter oversees proceedings.
Both Matt and Mike explain that a lot of directors and actors return to the show as they have such a good time in the creative and nurturing environment.
And it’s true, the positivity is infectious, we would definitely return for a repeat prescription.
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