Damn David

Doctors Series Producer Peter Lloyd mourns the departure of some of his favourite Doctors actors.

Damn, damn, damn. We’re losing Simon Bond. Or more correctly, the wonderful David Sturzaker has decided not to stay with us next series. This has happened before and it will happen again, but one can’t help feeling frustrated at creating a successful character, only to have him snatched away from you because the artist concerned is keen to do other things with his career. Shouldn’t be allowed.

Okay, that’s unfair. David is a talented young actor and has a lot of things he wants to do, we were probably lucky to have him for as long as we did and we got to tell some great stories with him, particularly the depression/suicide plot.

But damn him anyway.

When this has happened before (Vivien, George & Ronnie) I have gone into a state of mourning for the character, and the fun of working with the actor. How I had so many plans, so many new directions to take him/her in the future, how we’ll never get to see Simon fully qualified and that idea for the cruise ship …. But life, and the Mill, goes on and eventually one has to come to terms with their departure and try to see the huge gaping hole of their passing as some kind of opportunity.

Ironically, it’s some six months later when we get to see the audience’s reaction to a character’s departure, and how annoyed they get – “Now George and Ronnie have left, I refuse to watch it any more” and “It’s just not as good without Vivien”. Alright already! I know I know, but it’s not my fault and much as I’d love to, I just don’t have that kind of power over actors’ lives and ambitions. I truly wish I did, but sadly it’s beyond my job description and I’d probably get fired if I tried.

So you learn to see this as an opportunity, a chance to refresh the cast and introduce some new faces to stir things up. I always start with the characters we have already, draw a kind of ‘map’ and then look at the types of characters we don’t have. Who will create conflict? Who’s the absolute opposite of Zara?

What’s the last thing Howard needs? etc.

Everyone expects us to have another nurse, but it’s rather predictable isn’t it? Plus, nurse stories are even harder for writers to engineer than doctor stories. We went for years with only one featured nurse at the practices (Faith, then Michelle) and I don’t see why we need to change that now we have Cherry. Of course there are other nurses, but they tend to be non speaking and moving around in the background – I’d love to have a whole gang of them but this isn’t Angels, it’s Doctors.

But trainee doctors are always useful – young, stupid, ignorant, idealistic, passionate, all the good stuff. We may have two. Now that Simon has gone and Daniel and Zara are partners, it seems fitting for them to have a young doctor each to mentor (Heston needs a break after Simon). A natural source of competition between them – that’s full of fun possibilities…

Read Peter LLoyd's musings on the perils of finding the best actor for the role

Read Peter Lloyd's piece explaining the inspiration behind the character names in Doctors.

Read Peter Lloyd's piece on the process behind creating a truly great character