Emergency Ward 10
| Emergency – Ward 10 | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Calling Nurse Roberts |
| Genre | Soap opera |
| Created by | Tessa Diamond |
| Ending theme | Silks and Satins |
| Composer(s) | Peter Yorke |
| Country of origin | UK |
| No. of episodes | 1016 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 mins |
| Production company(s) | ATV |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV |
| Original release | 19 February 1957 – 27 June 1967 |
Emergency – Ward 10 is a British medical soap opera series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. Like The Grove Family, a series shown by the BBC between 1954 and 1967, Emergency – Ward 10 is considered to be one of British television's first major soap operas.
The series was made by the ITV contractor ATV and set in a fictional hospital called Oxbridge General. Growing out of what was originally intended to be no more than a six-week serial (entitled Calling Nurse Roberts), the series became ITV's first twice-weekly evening soap opera. Emergency – Ward 10 was the first hospital-based television drama to establish a successful format combining medical matters with storylines centring on the personal lives of the doctors and nurses.
Emergency – Ward 10 attracted attention for its portrayal of an interracial relationship between surgeon Louise Mahler (played by Joan Hooley) and Doctor Giles Farmer (played by John White), showing the second kiss on television between black and white actors in July 1964, the first such kiss being in a Granada TV play You in Your Small Corner in 1962. However, the producers wrote Mahler out shortly afterwards by sending her to Africa, where she succumbed to snake bite.
When ratings began to slide it was decided to convert the programme from a soap to a one-hour drama for Saturday nights, produced by Jo Douglas. It didn't work. Emergency – Ward 10 ended in 1967 after the show had been on air for ten years. ATV executive Lew Grade later admitted that cancelling the series was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made in his career.
The formula was subsequently revived with the (originally) afternoon series General Hospital (no connection with the American daytime soap General Hospital) which was broadcast between 1972 and 1979.
Australia's Charles "Bud" Tingwell starred in the series as surgeon Alan "Digger" Dawson, enjoying a heart-throb status because of his role.
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