It is the hospital drama that has gripped viewers for 23 years with stories of love, loss and tragedy – but Holby City itself is now on its deathbed with only weeks to live.
Yet while Tuesday nights will never be the same again, the show will have a long-lasting legacy in the huge cast of stars who have walked its corridors.
With more than nine million viewers in its heyday, it helped launch famous faces including Oscar-winner Olivia Colman, Sheridan Smith and Jodie Comer.
Other established names have also been delighted to put in an appearance during its 1,000-plus episodes – among them Patsy Kensit, Maureen Lipman and comics Ade Edmondson and Paul O’Grady.
But even though the programme still attracts two million viewers, a petition of almost 50,000 names was not enough to save it from the BBC axe.
Among others to get a leg-up from the show were X Men stars Nicholas Hoult and Michael Fassbender.
Michael, then 25, appeared in series four as a patient having his spleen removed.
He recalled: “They were filming the scene over and over, focusing on all the doctors, and I was lying there with my eyes closed.
“I just drifted off. I woke to hear someone whispering, ‘He’s asleep’.”
Comic Paul O’Grady, already a well-known TV face, played cancer patient Tim Connor in 2013 for three episodes – but says it was all so real it convinced him he truly was ill.
Paul said: “I’d lie in bed all day with tubes on me, then I’d go in the next day and they would put even more tubes on me.
“They make you look ill. After 14 hours of that every day I came home and had to tell myself I wasn’t actually ill.
“I literally had to tell myself to stop it, to remember I was just playing a character.”
It was a common phenomenon – Kym Marsh reveals she was relieved not to have been cast as a patient when she appeared on Holby in one of her first roles after making the switch from pop star.
She said: “The character I played was called Myrna. To be honest, she was a bit of a rough old bird.
“I’m glad I wasn’t the patient. Everyone tells me that after a while you really start to feel ill.”
Kym credits the show with helping her go on to become a regular in Coronation Street – just like fellow Holby alumni Angela Griffin.
Angela, who played staff nurse Jasmine Hopkins for the first three series, said: “In one scene I ended up with my hands in a chest cavity, full of blood and gore, handling a pig’s heart. I never thought I’d be able to do it.
“Holby taught me so much and I met two of my best friends, Lisa Faulkner and Nicola Stephenson. But I wanted to do other stuff.”
Nicola was also keen not to get stuck and went on to star in Clocking Off, The Chase, Waterloo Road and Emmerdale, to name a few. She recalled: “It was very emotional doing my final scene with Angela, but I didn’t become an actress to stay in the same job for long periods.”
Given the working title of Surgical Two, Holby City began on January 12, 1999, as a spin-off to the BBC’s hugely successful Casualty. It has run for 23 series.
It was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young and has been nominated for more than 100 awards. Among its 10 wins was a Bafta in 2008.
Praised for tackling real-life issues, its cast were taught how to give realistic injections, monitor blood pressure and check a pulse, and were also allowed into hospitals to understand the real environment.
The final episodes were filmed in December and it will bow out at the end of March, with past faces likely to show up plus a few shocks and surprises.
Paul Bradley joined the show in 2005, having earlier spent six years as EastEnders ’ Nigel Bates. He played Holby’s Dr Elliot Hope for 10 years, from 2005 to 2015, popping up again three years ago.
Paul said: “I loved Holby – it’s like being in a play. It’s a gentler pace. If EastEnders is the rock ’n’ roll, Holby is the jazz.”
Patsy Kensit was also a big-name actress when she joined in 2007 as nurse Faye Morton. She stayed in the role for four years – and found the workload gruelling.
The Lethal Weapon 2 star said: “I had a fantastic time. I miss the cast and crew… but not the long hours.”
Patsy left in 2010, going straight on to Strictly and reaching the last seven. Another who took that route was Joe McFadden – surgeon Raf Di Lucca – who quit in 2017 and went on to lift Strictly’s glitterball trophy.
Joe said: “I’ll always look back on my four years with fondness – it was one of the happiest jobs I’ve done.”
Rosie Marcel, who has played heart surgeon Jac Naylor for 16 years, said: “When I was given the news it was closing, I went through stages of grief.
“First you’re really angry, then you get complacent – then comes the emotion, and then you’re forgiving. I’ll be extremely sad to say goodbye to Jac. She’s touched a lot of people’s lives.”
Grantchester star Jemma Redgrave, who plays Bernie Wolfe, said: “The series punched way above its weight. It told difficult stories so delicately and, at its best, it was funny and heartbreaking by turn.
“It never patronised its audience and I was proud to be a part of it.”
But perhaps the last word should go to longest-serving cast member Hugh Quarshie, 67, who played general surgeon Ric Griffin – a five-times-married serial gambler – for 635 episodes after joining in 2001.
He has made no secret of feeling the show should have kept a focus on issues rather than relationships between the staff.
Hugh, who left in 2020, said: “I wanted a sustained storyline on prostate cancer and a whistleblower one. I’m not sure whether they considered upping their game, making it more like ER rather than Doctors.”
The BBC said: “We’re incredibly proud of Holby City but we sometimes have to make difficult decisions to make room for new opportunities.”
- Holby City, BBC1, Tuesdays, 8pm until end of March. Previous episodes are on iPlayer
Famous actors who started their careers on Holby
■ Olivia Colman: Now an Oscar-winning actress and star of The Crown, Broadchurch and Fleabag, Olivia was a relative unknown back in 2002 when she played a character called Kim Prebble for one episode.
■ Sheridan Smith: The Gavin & Stacey star, then still a teenager, appeared in six episodes of Holby in 2001 as a patient called Miranda Locke who ended up stalking a doctor.
■ Jodie Comer: Best known as psychopath assassin Villanelle in Killing Eve, the Liverpudlian got her second TV role in 2010 aged 16, a one-off appearance playing Holby patient Ellie Jenkins.
■ Nicholas Hoult: Nicholas found fame aged 12 in 2002’s About a Boy. A year earlier he was a patient in Holby – having also been in Casualty aged six.
■ Charlotte Riley: The Peaky Blinders actress also got her second TV appearance on Holby, playing patient Tanya Cusan in 2007.
■ Michael Fassbender: The German-Irish actor has been the star of films including the X Men franchise. But 20 years ago he played a patient having his spleen out – and fell asleep while filming.
