A look ahead to series two - Radio Times, March 2006

Features

A look ahead to series two - Radio Times, March 2006

Alison Graham met the cast and crew of comedy Green Wing to consider what made the first series so successful and find out about plans for the second.

What's so special about Green Wing?

1. At an hour long, Green Wing went against the central tenet of British sitcom - that nothing lasts more than 30 minutes.

2. It mixed sketches with slapstick, and introduced a speeded-up editing technique, all the while developing characters and keeping (roughly) to
a narrative.

3. It was filmed in two working hospitals, amid real patients and real staff. "We get a few funny looks, but after a while they get inured. The other day we filmed Michelle Gomez [Sue White] walking down here with some gladioli, whacking people in the face. They just assumed she was mad." JULIAN RHIND-TUTT ("Mac" Macartney)

4. "There's a written script, but there's also always room for improvisation. On some projects you can't change an 'and' or a 'but' without the writer having multiple heart seizures, but here they're very amenable if you want to come in and say 'Look, I have a better line here,' or 'What if I do this?'" STEPHEN MANGAN (Guy Secretan)

Unexpected success

"I usually kill 'em dead after one series, so I'm always amazed when anything I'm in actually continues." JULIAN RHIND-TUTT

"There was a fear that we loved it because we were doing it, and it might not translate, and people would just sit there going 'What is this, just a load of people titting about in the NHS.' But as soon as I saw the completed pilot episode, I knew it was something special." TAMSIN GREIG (Caroline Todd)

Making series two

"Our biggest problem has been that we've had to pursue more of a narrative thread, as the characters are now inter-linked and have histories and relationships. So we haven't been able to be quite as random in our writing or our shooting. Really, Green Wing wasn't set up to be a story-driven show." VICTORIA PILE, Writer

"I don't really know what happens because they haven't finished writing it. It's like we're all working on a nuclear bomb: we all know only about our own bit. I have filmed scenes and I don't actually know what they're about." JULIAN RHIND-TUTT

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Now take a look at our full Green Wing guide.

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