"tlc"

"tlc" - from l to r Dr Flynn (Reece Shearsmith), Gasman (Erich Redman), Mr. Ron (Richard Griffiths), Terry (Benedict Wong), Dr Noble (Alexander Armstrong)

"tlc" - from l to r Dr Flynn (Reece Shearsmith), Mr. Ron (Richard Griffiths), Dr Noble (Alexander Armstrong)

"tlc" - Georgia Mackenzie as Nurse Judy

"tlc" - Reece Shearsmith as Dr Flynn

"tlc" - Alexander Armstrong as Dr Noble

tlc - the heart attack scene

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tlc

Dr Fintan Coyle was a doctor who'd had to retire from active practice because of a chronic back injury. So he sat around, created the format for the BBC's "The Weakest Link" and wrote a pilot script for "tlc" (at that point, called "Trust"). We did a readthrough in front of the then controller of BBC Two, Jane Root (and thereby inadvertently subjecting her to a stream of Richard Griffiths' most gloriously off-colour anecdotes), and we got greenlit for a series of six.

The location was a semi-disused hospital in Bow, a very rough part of London. It was perfectly normal, between takes, for the cast to be accosted by confused patients clutching samples and asking them things like "Where's Urology mate?"... After a while, Reece (Shearsmith) & Xander (Armstrong) started telling them the answers.

The series transmitted in November/December 2002 on BBC Two

Here's part of the original blurb:

tlc is a story about one man's journey into hell.

That man is Junior Doctor Flynn.

That hell is an NHS hospital

The time is now.

tlc
tender loving care

tlc is set in a large modern urban NHS hospital. Somewhere. It doesn't matter where, because, like Doctor Flynn, you'll never see the outside world.

tlc is a jet black comedy on the state of modern medicine and the NHS.

tlc is about 24-hour shifts that grow into 48 and 72-hour shifts.

tlc is shot on location, mostly handheld, to enhance the feelings of enclosure and surreality.

tlc is not a sitcom set in the cosy world of doctors, nurses and patients demanding bedpans. It's about breakdown and failure, perpetual night and lack of sleep, Catholic guilt and cigarettes.

Why does the chaplain always carry a rib spreader?
Why is there a crocodile in the ward bath?
Is that Jesus over there in a white coat?
and how do you score a gram of coffee round here?

Perhaps it's time to meet the firm...


Flynn is the new intern in a General Surgery firm. He is young, hopeful, innocent, eager to learn. He doesn't know it yet, but he's also never going to sleep again. He is Catholic, comes from a family of doctors and has always had a vocation. Now, he's beginning to doubt his faith in God and in medicine. Flynn is also incredibly accident-prone, and frankly, cack-handed. In a world of surgical precision, this could be a disadvantage. He is also sexually immature, and bedazzled by the perpetual allure of the nursing team, especially Nurse Judy, who sends him into spasms of self-denying frustration.

Flynn is played by Reece Shearsmith

 

Noble is the Registrar on Flynn's firm and thus one level senior to Flynn. He's halfway to total cynicism, and all-knowing in the ways of the hospital, sexually "busy" and the man who's job it is to initiate Flynn into the nightmare. He's also a stylish and experienced doctor. Noble can reset a dislocated shoulder with a flick of the wrist, a sprained wrist with a flick of the shoulder and a broken ECG machine with a swift application of the defibrillators. Noble doesn't believe in God, and regards sex as a necessary and normal consequence of playing Doctors and Nurses. He can't understand Flynn's scruples, but he is kindly towards him.

Noble is played by Alexander Armstrong


Mr. Ron is the Consultant. Utterly mercenary, utterly grandiose, utterly useless. He can never remember any of the patient's names, and expects people to cluster around him supplying him instantly with facts, diagnoses, pens - and patient's names. Inasmuch as he recognizes Junior Doctors at all, he dimly perceives that Flynn is probably useless. Conversely, the rest of the firm think he's a twat. They're right. So do all the patients. They're also right.

Mr. Ron is played by Richard Griffiths

 

Sister Hope is the Ward Sister. Second generation Afro-Caribbean. She runs her ward like a big nursery and treats the doctors as slightly tiresome over-anxious parents. If she's on nights, she's quite likely to tie patients up in order to get a good night's sleep and thinks that pain relief is only for big babies. She runs a constant war of attrition with Noble and Flynn, not least by waking them up in the middle of the night for the most trivial things she can think of. She is deeply religious in a Baptist sort of way, and thinks that Catholics are weird.

Sister Hope is played by Llewella Gideon


Staff Nurse Judy is the highly competent linchpin of the firm. She knows her arse from her elbow. Flynn's never met such cool competence before. Judy knows that Flynn dotes on her - all Junior Doctors do. She's just not interested in sex, and if she was, it wouldn't be with hapless schoolboys like Flynn.

Staff Nurse Judy is played by Georgia Mackenzie


As for Sid, the Chaplain, Gasman, Wheelchair Man, Terry and The Linen Lady - well, you'll meet them soon enough.

tlc

Pilot Readthrough

Performance on 9/2/01
This was a conflation of what was to become Script 1 & 2, adapted for reading “round a table” in front of the Controller of BBC2, Jane Root.

Starring
Dr. FlynnReece Shearsmith
Dr. NobleSimon Pegg
Mr. RonRichard Griffiths
Nurse JudySarah Parish
Sister HopeSharon D. Clarke
Sid the PorterDavid Battley
TerryRobert Webb
The GasmanKerry Shale
The ChaplainBrian Cant
The Linen LadyEleanor Bron
The Wheelchair ManSteve Frost
Mrs. KaneJulia Hills
Dr. GaltonEwen Cummins
Father KerriganKevin Moore
 
Written byFintan Coyle
 
Directed byGeoff Posner
 
Produced byGeoff Posner
David Tyler

Series 1

Show 1

First Tx 11/11/02 21.30-22.00 BBC 2

In this first episode, Dr. Flynn has just qualified as a doctor and is plunged into his first shift at the dreaded South Middlesex Hospital. He'll meet a talking corpse, a mad German anaesthetist and a drugs bust, but will he ever see daylight again? Only Dr. Noble can help him…

Starring
Dr. FlynnReece Shearsmith
Dr. NobleAlexander Armstrong
Mr. RonRichard Griffiths
Nurse JudyGeorgia Mackenzie
Sister HopeLlewella Gideon
Sid the PorterTom Watts
TerryBenedict Wong
The GasmanErich Redman
The ChaplainTim Brooke-Taylor
The Wheelchair ManMartin Trenaman
 
Also starring
Mr. CopperfieldPip Torrens
The ExaminerDavid Savile
IVF DoctorPooja Kumar
IVF PatientAnn Wenn
Woman In LabourGael Johnson
Dad-To-BeSimon Thomson
Coma PatientJimmy Roussounis
Coma AnaesthetistTimothy Mitchell
Junior DoctorsPaul Kemp
Shereen Ibrahim
Laurence Howarth
CleanerAndrea Hall
Old Lady In WheelchairSusan Scott
Mrs CopperfieldCharlotte McDougall
ObstetricianAileen Gonsalves
Medical StudentsChris Geere
Naomi Taylor
San Shella
 
Written byFintan Coyle

Show 2

First Tx 18/11/02 21.30-22.00 BBC 2

Junior Dr. Flynn is about to meet a 83 year old patient with a difference, a vampire on the loose, a toffee in a belly-button, a nasty photocopier incident and some anthrax. Meanwhile, he's beginning to fall for Staff Nurse Judy and accidentally gets sectioned under the Mental Health Act…

Starring
Dr. FlynnReece Shearsmith
Dr. NobleAlexander Armstrong
Mr. RonRichard Griffiths
Nurse JudyGeorgia Mackenzie
Sister HopeLlewella Gideon
Sid the PorterTom Watts
TerryBenedict Wong
The GasmanErich Redman
The ChaplainTim Brooke-Taylor
The Wheelchair ManMartin Trenaman
 
Also starring
Mrs PricePeggy Shields
Sperm Donation NurseSue Elliott-Nicholls
The Linen LadyMia Soteriou
Father KerriganJohn O'Mahony
ChefPaul Putner
MidwifeAbi Eniola
Woman Giving BirthJohanne Murdock
ExterminatorsJohn Rapley
Godfrey Jackman
Dr GaltonNicholas Monu
 
Written byFintan Coyle

Show 3

First Tx 25/11/02 21.30-22.00 BBC 2

Junior Dr. Flynn is on a mission of the utmost medical emergency - to try and get a clean white coat before the next Ward Round with the consultant, Mr. Ron. The only things stopping him are a rat, the Pet Shop Boys and the spleen of the local priest.

Starring
Dr. FlynnReece Shearsmith
Dr. NobleAlexander Armstrong
Mr. RonRichard Griffiths
Nurse JudyGeorgia Mackenzie
Sister HopeLlewella Gideon
Sid the PorterTom Watts
TerryBenedict Wong
The GasmanErich Redman
The ChaplainTim Brooke-Taylor
The Wheelchair ManMartin Trenaman
 
Also starring
Photocopier PatientRenee Nyland
EthelEdna Dore
The PsychiatristJoan Oliver
Mr HollandDavid McKail
 
Written byFintan Coyle

Show 4

First Tx 2/12/02 21.30-22.00 BBC 2

The South Middlesex Hospital has lost all three of its NHS Ratings stars and it's Dr. Flynn and Dr. Noble's job to get them back. Which they do with the help of some X-Ray Specs, two jars of maggots and a lot of blood. Really a lot. 

Starring
Dr. FlynnReece Shearsmith
Dr. NobleAlexander Armstrong
Mr. RonRichard Griffiths
Nurse JudyGeorgia Mackenzie
Sister HopeLlewella Gideon
Sid the PorterTom Watts
TerryBenedict Wong
The GasmanErich Redman
The ChaplainTim Brooke-Taylor
The Wheelchair ManMartin Trenaman
 
Also starring
PathologistRichard Freeman
DI CrightonDavid Cann
Police ConstableRoger Morlidge
ChiropodistVicki Pepperdine
Chiropody PatientHilary Sesta
Frank BriggsFrank Harper
MinderJay Kilbey
"Bad News" MotherLorraine Hilton
"Bad News" FatherWill Ashcroft
 
Written byFintan Coyle

Show 5

First Tx 9/12/02 21.30-22.00 BBC 2

The South Middlesex Hospital has lost all three of its NHS Ratings stars and it's Dr. Flynn and Dr. Noble's job to get them back. Which they do with the help of some X-Ray Specs, two jars of maggots and a lot of blood. Really a lot. 

Starring
Dr. FlynnReece Shearsmith
Dr. NobleAlexander Armstrong
Mr. RonRichard Griffiths
Nurse JudyGeorgia Mackenzie
Sister HopeLlewella Gideon
Sid the PorterTom Watts
TerryBenedict Wong
The GasmanErich Redman
The ChaplainTim Brooke-Taylor
The Wheelchair ManMartin Trenaman
 
Also starring
Mrs HowardMarsha Millar
MidwifeSue Elliott-Nicholls
Patients In CorridorSteve Varnom
Jean Trend
Nicholas Amer
Mrs StanleyJulie Foulds
ChefPaul Putner
ICU CleanerConnie M'Gadzah
 
Written byFintan Coyle

Show 6

First Tx 16/12/02 21.30-22.00 BBC 2

In the last episode of the series, the arrival of a young agency nurse from Spain puts an interesting twist on Nurse Judy's feelings for Dr. Flynn. We must warn viewers that this episode contains scooters, chocolate, a dead head in the fridge, The Weakest Link, anal warts and a pizza called the Abattoir Meat Feast.

Starring
Dr. FlynnReece Shearsmith
Dr. NobleAlexander Armstrong
Mr. RonRichard Griffiths
Nurse JudyGeorgia Mackenzie
Sister HopeLlewella Gideon
Sid the PorterTom Watts
The GasmanErich Redman
The ChaplainTim Brooke-Taylor
The Wheelchair ManMartin Trenaman
 
Also starring
The PhlebotomistAdrian Scarborough
1950s PatientDavid Mitchell
1960s PatientSimon Godley
1970s PatientTrevor Georges
1990s PatientJane Partridge
Mr GrayHugh Sachs
Mr PiperChristopher Beck
ChefPaul Putner
JuanitaRebecca Santos
Mr CliffordFrank Coda
Mr RenshawPeter Waddington
Gasman's PatientFlaminia Cinque
AudiologistRacheal Joseph
 
Written byFintan Coyle
 

Casting
Tracey Gillham

Music By
Pete Baikie & Willie Dowling

Medical Advisor
Carlton Jarvis

Location Manager
Lisa Grimes

Special Effects
Machine Shop

Production Buyer
Pauline Seager

Property Master
Andy Armstrong

Art Director
Rachel Robertson

Costume Designer
Anna Stubley
Martine Cooper

Make Up Designer
Diane Chenery-Wickens
Xanthia White

Production Co-Ordinator
Suzanne Facenfield

Production Team
Andrew Georgiou
Alexander Hodgson
Tim Mannion
Suzanne McClelland
Emma Perry

Stage Manager
Shona Penman

1st Assistant Director
Nick Rae

Script Supervisor
Eve Spence

VT Editor
Mark Wybourn

Dubbing Mixer
Glenn Calder

Sound Supervisor
Chris Round

Gaffer
Fritz Henry

Grip
Julian Wright

Camera Operator
Martin Hawkins

Director Of Photography
Rob Kitzmann

Designer
Les Stephenson

Production Manager
Justine Randle

Associate Producer
Jed Leventhall

 
Directed byGeoff Posner
 
Produced byGeoff Posner
David Tyler

tlc

See all the characters in the photo gallery...

Watch the behind-the-scenes "Making Of tlc" video. Never-been-seen before medical tomfoolery...

You can buy the DVD by clicking here

You can click here to go to the BBC website to read more about the show and watch a clip

And normally, we don't link to YouTube, but we couldn't resist this one - for some reason, someone has translated the titles into German and put them on YouTube here. We think it means something like "Dr. Flynn - survival is a matter of luck."


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