In Green Wing, nobody seems to do much medical work.
No. This harks back to an idea of Victoria Pile, the producer and creator of the show, that the fact it’s set in a hospital is really just random and incidental. She’s insistent that it’s not really a hospital show – the hospital’s really just a crucible for all these people to come together and all this stuff to happen in. That’s why you never see the patients and nothing medical ever happens. And yet you had to go and observe operations taking place before filming. Wasn’t that a bit superfluous?
Well, we do have these operating sequences. And I was trying to be a serious dramatic actor, thinking we ought to learn how they do the operations – before we go and ignore it all. Without wanting to sound ludicrously pretentious, you know that to play the piano badly you have to play it well first? And also, quite a number of the eccentric and strange behaviour you see in Green Wing in the operating theatre actually happened when we went to see real operations. We’ve been in operations where they had Stairway to Heaven playing, we’ve been in operations where people have answered mobile phones, we’ve been in operations where people were doing their skiing exercises up against the wall halfway through the operation. The most interesting thing about Green Wing, for me, is that I bump into people in the street who are doctors and surgeons, and they say that Green Wing is possibly the most realistic medical programme on TV.
No. This harks back to an idea of Victoria Pile, the producer and creator of the show, that the fact it’s set in a hospital is really just random and incidental. She’s insistent that it’s not really a hospital show – the hospital’s really just a crucible for all these people to come together and all this stuff to happen in. That’s why you never see the patients and nothing medical ever happens. And yet you had to go and observe operations taking place before filming. Wasn’t that a bit superfluous?
Well, we do have these operating sequences. And I was trying to be a serious dramatic actor, thinking we ought to learn how they do the operations – before we go and ignore it all. Without wanting to sound ludicrously pretentious, you know that to play the piano badly you have to play it well first? And also, quite a number of the eccentric and strange behaviour you see in Green Wing in the operating theatre actually happened when we went to see real operations. We’ve been in operations where they had Stairway to Heaven playing, we’ve been in operations where people have answered mobile phones, we’ve been in operations where people were doing their skiing exercises up against the wall halfway through the operation. The most interesting thing about Green Wing, for me, is that I bump into people in the street who are doctors and surgeons, and they say that Green Wing is possibly the most realistic medical programme on TV.
It’s a very unfair question to ask, but who makes you laugh the most on the cast?
That is a grossly unfair question. It’s impossible to answer. It depends who I’m talking to at that moment. There isn’t a single person that hasn’t made me fall over with laughing. It’s not that I don’t want to answer it, but I can’t, really. Does everyone actually get on, or is the production secretly riddled with vileness and jealousy?
Oh, it’s riddled with vileness, jealousy, competitiveness, rancour and power struggles. I do hope the irony of my tone translates into print. When we left you in the first series, you were in an ambulance on the edge of a cliff, debating The Three Musketeers. Can we expect you to plunge over the edge and die screaming in the opening episode of the series?
Yes, you can expect that. All this photo shoot and interview business is in many ways a waste of time, as I’m not actually in the second series. It’s a massive public relations stunt, with my imminent removal from the series and, I believe, Paul Nicholas coming in to take over quite soon, to bring a bit of quality to the role of the nice guy. Is there anything you really can reveal about series 2?
I’m really good in it.
That is a grossly unfair question. It’s impossible to answer. It depends who I’m talking to at that moment. There isn’t a single person that hasn’t made me fall over with laughing. It’s not that I don’t want to answer it, but I can’t, really. Does everyone actually get on, or is the production secretly riddled with vileness and jealousy?
Oh, it’s riddled with vileness, jealousy, competitiveness, rancour and power struggles. I do hope the irony of my tone translates into print. When we left you in the first series, you were in an ambulance on the edge of a cliff, debating The Three Musketeers. Can we expect you to plunge over the edge and die screaming in the opening episode of the series?
Yes, you can expect that. All this photo shoot and interview business is in many ways a waste of time, as I’m not actually in the second series. It’s a massive public relations stunt, with my imminent removal from the series and, I believe, Paul Nicholas coming in to take over quite soon, to bring a bit of quality to the role of the nice guy. Is there anything you really can reveal about series 2?
I’m really good in it.
Advertisement
