7 /10 1 Votes7
No. of series 10 Running time 30 minutes First episode date 12 July 1969 Number of episodes 157 | 6.9/10 TV No. of episodes 157 Original network ITVChannel SevenBBC1 Final episode date 4 April 1991 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Starring Barry EvansRobin NedwellGeoffrey DaviesGeorge LaytonErnest ClarkRichard O'Sullivan Country of origin United KingdomAustralia Cast Similar | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Doctor in the House is the American collective name for seven separate British and Australian television comedy series inspired by a series of cinema films, which in turn were based on and inspired by a series of books by Richard Gordon, about the misadventures of a group of medical students — and their later misadventures as doctors.
Contents
- Plot
- Characters
- Guest stars
- Series
- Writers
- Location of St Swithins Hospital
- Australia
- North America
- References
The first five series, Doctor in the House, Doctor at Large, Doctor in Charge, Doctor at Sea and Doctor on the Go, were produced by London Weekend Television between 1969 and 1977.
The sixth series, Doctor Down Under, which was filmed and based in Australia, was produced by Australia's Seven Network in 1979.
The final series, Doctor at the Top, was produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1991.
The same theme music — "Bond Street Parade" by Alan Tew — was used for all of the "Doctor" television series, including the Australian series Doctor Down Under.
Plot
The plot revolved around the trials of medical students at St Swithin's hospital in London.
Characters
The major protagonists were:
The main antagonist is the famous, well-respected and ill-tempered surgeon Professor (later Sir) Geoffrey Loftus (Ernest Clark). Most of the plot lines revolve around the students' attempts to meet his demanding expectations.
Another hospital official with whom the students have contact is the Dean (Ralph Michael), who is more interested in the hospital's Rugby union team than he is in medicine.
Other characters in the early episodes, some of whom later reappeared for single episodes in subsequent series, included:
Guest stars
Notable guest stars throughout the run of the series and its sequels included:
Hattie Jacques, Mollie Sugden, Roy Kinnear, Maureen Lipman, Patricia Routledge, Graeme Garden, David Jason, John Le Mesurier, Arthur Lowe, Angela Scoular, Tessa Wyatt and John Bluthal.
Series
Writers
Unusually for a British situation comedy series Doctor in the House did not depend on a single writer or partnership to write the scripts. The writers who worked on the series are often better known for their other work. Monty Python's Graham Chapman and John Cleese and The Goodies Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie were among the regular writers. Chapman and Garden both trained as doctors. Graeme Garden also appeared as a "Television Presenter" in the episode "Doctor on the Box".
While keeping mostly to the conventions of the situation comedy genre, the shows occasionally stretched the boundaries of what was seen on television. One script by Cleese called for Michael Upton to rip away a woman's dress in a single movement (she was hiding a key he needed in her cleavage). Another featured a stripper collapsing on stage mid-act with suspected pneumonia. A script by Garden and Oddie included a scene played out using cartoon drawings of the performers, in the style of a teenage romance magazine, while the actors voiced their lines.
Location of St. Swithin's Hospital
The building used as the fictional St. Swithin's Hospital is, in fact, the old Wanstead Hospital (based in Wanstead, London, E11). A number of years ago it was converted into a residential building and is now called Clock Court. It is a listed building based on Hermon Hill, within the London Borough of Redbridge. Before becoming a hospital it was an orphanage for children whose parents were lost at sea, and the architecture of the building depicts images of boats carved into the intricate stone. A number of celebrities are rumoured to have lived there over the years including the actor Gary Lucy (The Bill), and Heart FM radio DJ Paul Hollins.
Australia
The show proved to be very popular in Australia, where the series Doctor Down Under was filmed and based.
North America
From about 1971 to 1974 the program was syndicated in the United States and Canada by Group W Productions. The umbrella title Doctor in the House was used for all shows, and episodes from different series were sometimes shown out of sequence. The program briefly reappeared in US syndication in the 1980s, airing both episodes seen in its original US run and ones from later series.