HolbyBlue
Encyclopedia
HolbyBlue was a British
police drama
series that aired on BBC One
from 2007 to 2008. Produced by the BBC
, Red Planet Pictures and Kudos
for BBC One
, it is a spin-off
of the successful BBC One medical drama
Holby City
, itself a spin-off of the long-running series Casualty
.
The first series was broadcast between 8 May and 26 June 2007. A second series of 12 episodes broadcast from 20 March to 5 June 2008. The BBC announced in August 2008 that due to poor ratings, they had dropped the show and it would not be returning for a third series.
station, and following an in depth visit to the station's custody centre, it is rumoured that the Holby police station cell block is based on the real thing at Woking. The filming for the first series began in the last week of January 2007, at an old MOD
site near Longcross. It is also based at Brunel University
, West London, where the external shots of the police station were filmed. Scenes were also filmed in Egham
, Surrey. Shooting was also in Woking, Surrey, during the winter in the town centre.
The first series was broadcast on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m., in the regular timeslot of Holby City, which was moved to a Thursday timeslot for the duration of HolbyBlues run. A second series of 12 episodes was commissioned in June 2007 for transmission in 2008, with filming running until March 2008. The first episode is due to feature a crossover with the characters of Holby City, as the characters from that show are interviewed by the HolbyBlue police officers following a "major incident".
The BBC's Controller of Continuing Drama Series, John Yorke, has said of the crossover: "Loads of questions are asked in the Holby City episode that are answered in the HolbyBlue episode. That is exciting. It is something the Americans have done for years with shows like CSI and I really like it. You really believe it’s a world." The crossover episodes will be co-written by Holby City creator Tony McHale
, and HolbyBlue creator Tony Jordan
.
Series 1 had a regular villain, drugs baron Neculai Stenga, who died at the end of the series. Series 2 had a few long-running crime storylines: Episode 1 featured Jac Naylor from Holby City, who had been arrested for murder, although it turned out she was innocent. Three episodes were spent investigating the case of Sean Burrows, a youth worker who had beaten his wife and son. The most major villain was John's father, who John visited in prison and later appeared at the end of the series suspected of abusing prostitutes.
almost immediately after the programme's debut. The show is very different from its parents, Holby City and Casualty, in that it aims to "push the boundaries" in pre-watershed television, according to creator and writer Tony Jordan
. The second series had been toned down briefly, but there are still elements of upsetting and distressing scenes in the programme.
It was also criticised heavily by the Private Eye
and other companies for being another TV drama based in Holby
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
police drama
Police procedural
The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...
series that aired on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
from 2007 to 2008. Produced by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, Red Planet Pictures and Kudos
Kudos (production company)
Kudos Film and Television is a British independent film and television production company. It has produced television series for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, and its productions include Spooks , Hustle, Life on Mars and its spin-off Ashes to Ashes, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard and M.I. High...
for BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
, it is a spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
of the successful BBC One medical drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
Holby City
Holby City
Holby City, stylised as Holby Ci+y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One.The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12 January 1999...
, itself a spin-off of the long-running series Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...
.
The first series was broadcast between 8 May and 26 June 2007. A second series of 12 episodes broadcast from 20 March to 5 June 2008. The BBC announced in August 2008 that due to poor ratings, they had dropped the show and it would not be returning for a third series.
Episodes
Broadcast of the first episode was postponed by a week.Characters
- Cal MacaninchCal MacaninchCal MacAninch is a Scottish actor, best known for portraying the character of DI John Keenan in police drama Holby Blue on BBC 1 during 2007-8....
as DI John Keenan - Richard Harrington as DS Luke French
- Kacey AinsworthKacey AinsworthKacey Ainsworth is an English actress, best known for playing the long-suffering Little Mo in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.-Life and career:Kacey Ainsworth, is the only soap actress who has won three Soap Actress awards in one single year in 2002...
as Inspector Jenny Black - James HillierJames Hillier (actor)James Hillier, is an English actor. In recent years he has played Sergeant Christian Young on the BBC police drama, HolbyBlue, and Damian, Roxy Mitchell's fiancé in BBC1 Soap Opera EastEnders.-Early life:...
as Sergeant Christian Young - David Sterne as Sergeant Edward "Mac" McFadden
- Chloe HowmanChloe HowmanChloe Howman is an English actress.The daughter of actor Karl Howman , her sister is fellow actor Katy-Jo Howman....
as PC Kelly Cooper - Jimmy AkingbolaJimmy AkingbolaJimmy Akingbola is a British television, theatre and film actor. Born in 1978 in Plaistow, London to Nigerian parents, he was the youngest of four children...
as PC Neil Parker - Joe JacobsJoe Jacobs (actor)Joe Jacobs is an English actor. Jacobs has appeared in The Bill, Holby City and is most famous for his role as PC Billy Jackson in the BBC police drama HolbyBlue....
as PC Billy Jackson - Elaine GloverElaine GloverElaine Glover is an English actress. She grew up in Skipton.Elaine trained at Rose Bruford College as an Actor Musician...
as PC Lucy Slater - Kieran O'BrienKieran O'BrienKieran O'Brien is an English actor.-Biography:O'Brien, who grew up in nearby Royton, began acting at a early age and was the star of a BBC TV series Gruey by the time he was 15. He also featured in several other series at the time in one-off or recurring roles...
as PC Robert Clifton - Sara PowellSara PowellSara Powell is a mixed race British actress of a Jamaican father and English mother. She appeared in the BBC drama The Family Man. She has also appeared in Judge John Deed, London's Burning, Doctors, Desmond's, Silent Witness and the BBC's 1998 version of Vanity Fair. She is currently a regular in...
as Senior Crown Prosecutor Rachel Barker - Zöe LuckerZöe LuckerZöe Elizabeth Lucker is an English actress best known for playing the roles of Tanya Turner on ITV's Footballers' Wives and Vanessa Gold in EastEnders.-Career:...
as Kate Keenan - Tim Pigott-SmithTim Pigott-SmithTim Pigott-Smith is an English film and television actor.-Early life:Pigott-Smith was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, the son of Margaret Muriel and Harry Thomas Pigott-Smith, who was a journalist. He was educated at Wyggeston Boys' School, Leicester, King Edward VI School Stratford-upon-Avon, and...
as DCI Harry Hutchinson (Series 1) - Oliver MilburnOliver MilburnOliver Milburn , occasionally known by the name Oz Milburn, is an English actor.-Early life:Milburn was born in Dorset and educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, and then Eton College. He then went straight into television, with no formal acting training.-Career:He played Matthew Bannerman in...
as DCI Scott Vaughan (Series 2) - James ThorntonJames Thornton (actor)James Thornton is an English actor and Voice-over artist.-Early life and career:Thornton was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. He starred in the BBC One police series Holby Blue and currently appears as John Barton in the British soap opera Emmerdale...
as PC Jake Loughton (Series 2) - Velbor Topic as Neculai Stenga (Series 1)
- Julie Cox as Mandy French (Series 1)
- Stephanie Langton as Mandy French (Series 2)
- Kenneth ColleyKenneth ColleyKenneth Colley is an English actor. A long-time character actor, he came to wider prominence through his role as Admiral Piett in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi....
as John Keenan Senior (Series 2) - Kevin DoyleKevin DoyleKevin Edward Doyle is an Irish international footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers....
as Sean Burrows (Series 2)
Production
Actors spent some time shadowing uniform and detective officers at Surrey Police's WokingWoking
Woking is a large town and civil parish that shares its name with the surrounding local government district, located in the west of Surrey, UK. It is part of the Greater London Urban Area and the London commuter belt, with frequent trains and a journey time of 24 minutes to Waterloo station....
station, and following an in depth visit to the station's custody centre, it is rumoured that the Holby police station cell block is based on the real thing at Woking. The filming for the first series began in the last week of January 2007, at an old MOD
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
site near Longcross. It is also based at Brunel University
Brunel University
Brunel University is a public research university located in Uxbridge, London, United Kingdom. The university is named after the Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel....
, West London, where the external shots of the police station were filmed. Scenes were also filmed in Egham
Egham
Egham is a wealthy suburb in the Runnymede borough of Surrey, in the south-east of England. It is part of the London commuter belt and Greater London Urban Area, and about south-west of central London on the River Thames and near junction 13 of the M25 motorway.-Demographics:Egham town has a...
, Surrey. Shooting was also in Woking, Surrey, during the winter in the town centre.
The first series was broadcast on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m., in the regular timeslot of Holby City, which was moved to a Thursday timeslot for the duration of HolbyBlues run. A second series of 12 episodes was commissioned in June 2007 for transmission in 2008, with filming running until March 2008. The first episode is due to feature a crossover with the characters of Holby City, as the characters from that show are interviewed by the HolbyBlue police officers following a "major incident".
The BBC's Controller of Continuing Drama Series, John Yorke, has said of the crossover: "Loads of questions are asked in the Holby City episode that are answered in the HolbyBlue episode. That is exciting. It is something the Americans have done for years with shows like CSI and I really like it. You really believe it’s a world." The crossover episodes will be co-written by Holby City creator Tony McHale
Tony McHale
Tony McHale is a British actor, writer and director who has the dubious honour of being best known as a "stooge" to Jeremy Beadle on Game For A Laugh and later, Beadle's About. He trained at Rose Bruford College. He also enjoyed a long stint as a writer/director on the top rated BBC1 soap opera...
, and HolbyBlue creator Tony Jordan
Tony Jordan
Tony Jordan is a British television writer. He was listed as the number 1 television screen writer in the UK by Broadcast magazine and among British Broadcastings Top 20 in The Stage ., He currently resides in Hertfordshire, UK.For many years, he was lead writer and series consultant for BBC One...
.
Series 1 had a regular villain, drugs baron Neculai Stenga, who died at the end of the series. Series 2 had a few long-running crime storylines: Episode 1 featured Jac Naylor from Holby City, who had been arrested for murder, although it turned out she was innocent. Three episodes were spent investigating the case of Sean Burrows, a youth worker who had beaten his wife and son. The most major villain was John's father, who John visited in prison and later appeared at the end of the series suspected of abusing prostitutes.
Reception
The show has come under fire from the public since the first episode. Containing swearing and sex scenes before the 9pm watershed, the BBC received many complaints from viewers and the show was featured on BBC One's Points of ViewPoints of View
Points of View is a long-running television show shown in the United Kingdom on BBC One, featuring the letters of viewers offering praise, criticism and purportedly witty observations on the television of recent weeks...
almost immediately after the programme's debut. The show is very different from its parents, Holby City and Casualty, in that it aims to "push the boundaries" in pre-watershed television, according to creator and writer Tony Jordan
Tony Jordan
Tony Jordan is a British television writer. He was listed as the number 1 television screen writer in the UK by Broadcast magazine and among British Broadcastings Top 20 in The Stage ., He currently resides in Hertfordshire, UK.For many years, he was lead writer and series consultant for BBC One...
. The second series had been toned down briefly, but there are still elements of upsetting and distressing scenes in the programme.
It was also criticised heavily by the Private Eye
Private Eye
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
and other companies for being another TV drama based in Holby
Holby
Holby is a fictional city in the United Kingdom, in which BBC medical dramas Casualty and Holby City, and police drama HolbyBlue are set. It is based upon the city of Bristol, and is located in the fictional county of Wyvern in the South-West of England, not far from the Welsh border...
.
International broadcasters
| Country | Network | Series premiere | Weekly schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Channel Seven Seven Network The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach... |
30 November 2008 | Mondays, 12:30am | |
| BBC Prime BBC Prime BBC Prime was the BBC's general entertainment TV channel in Europe and the Middle East from 30 January 1995 until 11 November 2009, when it was replaced by BBC Entertainment.-Launch:... BBC Entertainment BBC Entertainment BBC Entertainment is an international television channel showcasing comedy, drama, light entertainment and children's programming from the BBC and other UK production houses... |
25 January 2010 |
Mondays, 9:45pm |
DVD releases
- The complete series 1 DVD was released 21 April 2008.
- In Australia, the DVD was released on 5 March 2009.
External links
- HolbyBlue at bbc.co.ukBbc.co.ukBBC Online is the brand name and home for the BBC's UK online service. It is a large network of websites including such high profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer, the pre-school site Cbeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize...