BFI to screen ATV medical soaps Emergency Ward 10 and General Hospital

Fans of classic ITV ‘medical soaps’ produced by ATV are in for a treat as the adventures of the Oxbridge General Hospital and The Midland General are aired by the BFI in London next month.

 

Britain’s first medical serial, Emergency Ward Ten – famous for giving Richard Thorp, now Alan Turner in Emmerdale, his earliest television role – forms part of the British Film Institute’s season looking at television’s love affair with the NHS. There is also a chance to see ATV’s other medical saga General Hospital, which ran from 1972 to 1979.

Emergency Ward Ten was ITV’s first major serial, airing twice a week, it became a must-see series for millions of viewers. The show ran for ten years until 1967 and became an infamous regret of ATV Network boss Lord Lew Grade – he said axing the show was one of his biggest television mistakes – so much so he gave it a new injection of life in the very similar General Hospital of the 1970s. The latter series however was based in The Midland General rather than the London original.

The serial made household names of many of its stars – some who went onto other long running shows. Richard Thorp, Jane Rossington, Desmond Carrington and John Alderton. In 1957 the series was bestowed a BAFTA award, credited in the ATV archive as being given to “the entire production, writing and acting team.”

The series also was made into a film in 1959 and a spin-off series Calling Oxbridge 2000 – was launched in 1962. The series followed Richard Thorp’s character of Dr Rennie as he set up his own country practice; he still featured in the main show at the same time!

Speaking in 1958 the producer Antony Kearey spoke of producing the two weekly episodes, which was compared to the American soap operas – the UK wouldn’t get its first taste of daily “soap opera” until 1964 with the arrival of ATV’s other series, Crossroads:

“Making a 30 minute serial twice a week is ten times as hard. A soap opera isn’t about high quality scripts, they don’t have the time with such a turn over of five episodes. Emergency Ward 10 is watched by eight million viewers and they expect a high quality show with the highest standards of ITV. They expect these standards to be kept up.”

Antony was so obsessed that the series was “as real” to life as possible he spent hours reading up on medical facts and doctoring journals. Of course the show today is a fabulous time capsule of 1950s and 60s serial, it is also a far cry from Granada’s lowly working class Coronation Street.

As with so many of ATV’s programmes the show is very ‘middle class’ and the only East End London accents are those of the ‘poorer’ patients. When the show began it was watched by only one million viewers, by the mid-1960s nearly 17 million tuned in for the continuing story of the Oxbridge, its staff – their private lives, and the everyday stories of the patients. Desmond Carrington can still of course be heard as a presenter on BBC Radio 2.

Emergency Ward 10 was frothy in format, cosy most of the time, but it did occasionally break into taboo storytelling – from suicidal patents flinging themselves out of windows to the famous interracial relationship between surgeon Louise Mahler and Doctor Giles Farmer, leading to controversy when a scene of the pair kissing was recorded. It wasn’t afraid to lean into variety too. ATV presenter Noele Gordon even appeared as herself in one 1964 edition involving a hospital open day. It was also home to future Doctor Who and Emmerdale actor Frazer Hines’ first on-screen TV kiss (with nurse Kate Ford, played by Jane Rossington)

Boss of ATV Network television production – Lord Lew Grade – pulled the plug on the Oxbridge after 966 half hour episodes and 50 one hour instalments; but only a few years later ATV was to revisit those medical matters.

When ITV were looking for new serials to help fill the new extended daytime schedules Lord Lew Grade decided to revive ATV’s medical drama fortunes. It has been suggested the plan to bring back the hospital saga was mainly down to the urging of Lady Grade who missed the goings on of the Oxbridge.

General Hospital would be based, on-screen at least, near Birmingham – rather than London like its predecessor –  in a fictional Midland town. The show however was produced in the same studios as Emergency Ward 10 – ATV Elstree (now home to EastEnders and Holby City)

Devised by Max Marquis and Dick Sharpes the story would once again surround the lives, professional struggles and loves of the doctors and nurses – rather than the woes and illnesses of the patents, who would be secondary in storylines to the medical characters.

ATV Network in its 1977 publicity for the show sums it up with this statement: “The programme is not to preach, but to entertain. Within the framework of a fiction series, the private and professional problems of both patients and staff of a large hospital complex are investigated in depth. Sometimes dramatically, sometimes humorously  – but always interestingly.”

The setting for The Midland General was based on the real Luton and Dunstable General Hospital – however some of the storylines at times were far from true-to-life. Taking the sensational melodrama slant that previously only Crossroads had dared to attempt in the UK General Hospital allowed viewers to raise their eyebrows when Jill Gascoigne’s character – patient Janey Hart – tragically died after Dr Neville Bywaters – actor Tony Adams – had fallen in love with her. But not to worry, a few episodes later and Jill Gascoigne returns to the hospital as Janey’s twin-sister!

Dr Neville did eventually find happiness when General Hospital aired an edition entitled ‘Spectre at the Feast’ celebrating the characters marriage to Caroline Pennington – actress Joanna Van Gyseghem – in 1977.

The show also proved to be very topical when writer David Fisher wrote the storyline ‘Twice Shy’ which revolved around a rabies crisis. ATV publicity in 1977 notes the script: “accurately anticipated the frightening implications of an outbreak of rabies, many months before the subject became headline news.”

Nick McCarty’s storyline entitled ‘All Fall Down’ was praised for its truthful and sympathetic portrayal of a young man coming to terms with epilepsy and how it affects his social and professional life. ATV note that this storyline generated many letters to the studios offering congratulations on the sensitive way in which the emotive subject was handled while Liz Gebhardt’s moving performance as an anorexic also gained much praise.

The formula clearly worked, after 270 episodes, in 1975 General Hospital left daytime and its twice-weekly half hour slots and headed to Friday nights as an hour-long drama. The show also had a change in direction, with a new more gritty, dramatic, theme tune in place ‘Red Alert’, replacing the gentler daytime version. The content of the show also re-focused to show more medical storylines and procedures. The BBC had its gritty hospital saga ‘Angels’ to rival ATV Network’s counterpart and so the ITV serial upped its medical game providing much more detailed scenes of surgery and medical discussion.

ATV publicity on the series, released in 1977, comments that the success of the show: “owes much to the almost documentary accuracy of its medical details – from the smallest piece of hospital equipment, to the technical expertise in a highly complicated heart transplant operation.

Written mainly by a small team of leading television writers under the supervisation of producer Royston Morley. …After approval of the basic theme by producer and script editor, the writer spends several weeks researching his subject. Every detail is then checked by the programme consultant before being approved for production.”

However by 1979 management at ATV had changed and it was felt that the show was – like Emergency Ward 10 before it – becoming irrelevant and out of touch. The cosy nature of General Hospital with its attractive doctors and sexy nurses was deemed out of date for the 1980s and after 70 hour-long episodes, and 340 overall editions, the Midland General closed its doors for the final time; leaving home-grown medical drama success – in its more graphic, gritty less glamorous style – to the BBC with shows such as Casualty.

Ironically by the late 1980s daytime audiences clearly had a desire for the General Hospital style of medical drama when ITV began showing Grundy Television’s The Young Doctors. It became a huge hit – at its peak the show had the biggest soap fan club in the UK. Maybe it’s no coincidence that The Young Doctors was devised by former ATV Network director Alan Coleman and produced by ex-Crossroads executive Reg Watson – both who were still at ATV when General Hospital launched – before moving to Grundy in 1974.

Like Emergency Ward 10 the show also had a host of star names appear over the years. General Hospital’s staff included porter Ernie Penrose played by future Coronation Street killer Richard Hillman – actor Brian Capron, Tony Adams – Dr Neville Bywaters – moved over to Crossroads where he remained for a decade as smooth manager Adam Chance, Lynda Bellingham played Nurse Hilda Price – now more famous as one of those Loose Women and Desmond’s actress Carmen Munro as Sister Francis Washington.

Patients included Joanna Lumley, Carry On star Patsy Rowlands, Birds Of A Feather actress Linda Robson, Allo’ Allo’s Carmen Silvera and Nuts In May’s Roger Sloman.

Event Information

Emergency Ward 10:

In an age of greater social divisions, doctors were gods in their own wards and nurses knew their place. When an Indian patient is diagnosed with TB the medical stakes are high.

This 25-minute episode is from 1959 and stars Charles Tingwell, Frederick Bartman and Barbara Clegg.

General Hospital:

When Dr Bywaters decides to go into private medicine, his colleagues are critical of his decision..

This 25-minute episode is from 1973 and stars Joanna Lumley, Tony Adams and David Garth.

Jimmy’s:

As part of the evening you can also see docusoap ‘Jimmy’s’ which was produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV.

The cameras capture life at St James’ University Hospital, Leeds. During a tour of the hospital, Edwina Currie, then Minister for Health, is confronted by some uneasy truths on the hospital wards.

This 25-minute episode is from 1987.

BFI Southbank: The Nation’s Health, 10th May 6:00pm, Click here for more details .