I've just dropped something off at my parent's house. They were watching Casualty.
"Look" my old man shouts at me "it's Stokes Croft... on the Telly".
How long has Casualty been a staple of Saturday night TV? 100, 150 years? Long enough to be in desperate need of a hip replacement.
And long enough for anyone living in Bristol not to be surprised by seeing the city popping up in the background. Surely?
I tried not to be interested in Stokes Croft being on the telly. I'd just driven up there to get to my parents.
But...
"hey! You're right...I've just driven up there...and look, it's Lakota!"
I think it's the Holby effect.
They film the show in Bristol, but the place it's set in is Holby.
So the left side of your brain is saying this is Holby, this is fiction.
And the right hand side of your brains os going, no hold on a minute, that's Park Street and that's Barton Hill round-a-bout, and look there's the Tesco at Eastville.
Meanwhile the little walnut sized blob at the back of your head, the bit that controls all reason and sense (hey, I'm no brain surgeon), is squeaking, "this is shit, this is shit, turn it off". But of course you're not listening to that because, "Holy fucking shit, look! There's a fictional fucking ambulance driving up Ashley Down Road!!"
There's talk of moving the filming to Cardiff.
That's a nice touch. A TV medical drama is going to lobotomise Bristol from itself graft on Cardiff and still call itself Holby.
They say that successful transplant patients never fully 'accept' their new organs. That although they're grateful and delighted to be alive they always 'know' the life saving replacement was from someone else, IS someone else's.
Will it be the same with a newly Welsh Holby? Who knows, but I bet the storylines will still be shit.
4 comments:
I quite like Casualty for two reasons,
1. I like seeing bits of Bristol on the telly (the novelty never wears off) except on the news that doesn't count. Why is it that its exciting to see Bristol in drama, but not in current affairs programmes? Or maybe that's just me.
2. I also like to play the 'guess how and who gets injured' game.
Oh I forgot to ask is Holby City filmed in Bristol as well?
Nah, I think Holby City is probably filmed in Birmingham - but, word has it, most big BBC drama is going to move to Wales, sharpish.
My other big woe with BBC drama/soap at the moment is that all the theme tunes sound the fricking same. They're interchangeable.
Does that mean that Pobl y Cum will move and be filmed in Reading or somewhere? It would make sense.
"llwwych, cym tallacghtewyll washing machine cymrraeg fywlliol eeggych llanterrwgoch chip shop."
How's your bach (geddit?) by the way?
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