Like Casualty and The Bill before it, Doctors has always been a rich source for potentially eye-catching roles for up-and-coming actors seeking that all-important early step up the career ladder.
The BBC One soap, which is set to end after 24 years on air, has also provided many welcome opportunities for many already established big names to shine, often at a late stage in their lives.
As Doctors concludes this Thursday (November 14), we’re looking back at just some of the famous figures who have cropped up in Letherbridge over the last quarter of a century.
Comedy legends
They say laughter is the best medicine. Little wonder then that Doctors has played host to many comedy superstars of the past, present and future since the series launched back in the year 2000.
Richard Briers, the now much-missed star of The Good Life once dropped in 2006 while stars of today, Guz Khan, Rosie Jones and Lucy Beaumont all made early appearances on the show.
Taskmaster star, Beaumont shared screentime with a then unknown Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the now legendary creator of the black comedy Fleabag and a genuine Hollywood star.
80s sitcom fans will also have enjoyed seeing Kathy Staff (aka. Nora Batty), Lynda Barron (Nurse Gladys in Open All Hours) and Paul Shane and Ruth Madoc (of Hi-de-Hi!) again, alongside the likes of Russ Abbott, Roy Hudd and Dad’s Army’s Pike, Ian Lavender.
Not to forget, Blackadder’s Baldrick, Tony Robinson, Office star, Lucy Davis, Red Dwarf’s Cat, Danny John-Jules, onetime Goodie, Tim Brooke-Taylor and many other iconic figures from the comedy world.
A special honourable mention should go to comedian Joe Pasquale whose appearance in the 2020 story The Joe Pasquale Problem helped make it one of the weirdest episodes of Doctors ever made.
Timelords
Need a different type of Doctor entirely? How about an actual Timelord? Future Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker made an appearance in Letherbridge in 2006, a full decade before she took up residence in the Tardis.
Meanwhile, the Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker has appeared three times in different episodes while his immediate successor, Sylvester McCoy played a Lollypop Man in 2008.
Furthermore, David Troughton (the son of the Second Doctor, Patrick) has shown his face while prolific Doctor Who companion and Emmerdale star Frazer Hines has appeared no less than three times in the last few years.
Music stars
A surprising number of music stars have also struck the right note on Doctors. Onetime chart-topper, Jamelia appeared in 2016 while ex-punk Toyah Wilcox and Coronation Street heartthrob turned pop sensation Adam Rickitt, Clare Grogan of Altered Images and Hear’Say star Kym Marsh have also toured Letherbridge in their time.
Soap icons
Where do soap stars go when their time is up? For many the seemingly calmer waters of Letherbridge can often present an attractive alternative.
Wendi Peters, who previously played headstrong Coronation Street matriarch Cilla Battersby, recently enjoyed a year-long stint as bossy practice manager (and mother of Suni), Nina Bulsara. Hollyoaks legend Carley Stenson also played Harriet Shelton, Daniel’s mistress, for a good while in 2021.
Perhaps unsurprisingly Doctors has played host to a wealth of other soap opera refugees from other series over the years including Anne Charleston (Madge from Neighbours), Johnny Briggs (Mike Baldwin in Coronation Street), Denise Welch (Coronation Street), Lucy Benjamin (EastEnders), Claire Sweeney (Brookside), Tracy-Ann Oberman (EastEnders), Ken Morley (Coronation Street), Todd Carty (Grange Hill, EastEnders and The Bill), Shaun Williamson (EastEnders) and many others.
Perhaps it is cheating to include Christopher Timothy’s name here. Timothy, who until that time, was best role for his role as Yorkshire vet, All Creatures Great and Small in the Eighties and Nineties played the pivotal role of Dr Brendan ‘Mac’ McGuire during the first years of Doctors’s existence.
The character returned in a recent episode for a brief, emotional final visit to the surgery. He and the well-known Diane Keen who played surgery manager, Julia Parsons between 2003 and 2012 were crucial to the show’s early success. Keen alone appeared in over 1,600 episodes of the series.
Hollywood icons
Most excitingly, a small selection of people who have appeared on Doctors have gone onto truly massive global success.
Who would have dreamed, after all, that young Eddie Redmayne, who appeared on the show in 2002 would go onto become the Oscar-winning star of such huge international movie hits as The Theory of Everything and Les Miserables, or that the incredibly talented stage and screen actress Sheridan Smith would have started out on this particular daytime BBC drama?
Long before she was anointed Queen of Dragons in the TV fantasy epic Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke made her TV debut as Saskia Meyer in the 2009 episode Empty Nest.
Another future Queen of a different kind, Claire Foy of The Crown turned up in Letherbridge in 2008 while 2012 saw Jodie Comer, the cool assassin of Killing Eve, appearing on the show.
Other rising stars who have appeared include Call The Midwife’s Helen George, Miranda, Lucifer and EastEnders star Tom Ellis, plus Nicholas Hoult who starred in Doctors back when he was still a child actor in 2001, just before he joined Hugh Grant in About A Boy.
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Oscar nominee and acclaimed star of The Shape of Water and the Paddington films Sally Hawkins also made an early appearance in the show.
Dame Harriet Walter (of Succession), the late Susannah York, Nina Sosanya, Cathy Tyson and Sian Phillips are all amongst those who have taken parts in the soap in the past, as is Brian Blessed, a man whose voice is so loud that he can reportedly be heard speaking from anywhere on Earth at any given time.
Doctors concludes on Thursday November 14 at 2pm on BBC One.
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