Radio Times: Review by:; Emma Sturgess

Emergency call centres are dealing with more 999 calls than ever before (there were 31 million last year) and this series follows cases from the moment the phone is answered to the resulting trip to the hospital or police station.

It’s filmed in Blackpool, where one of the main jobs of the emergency services is to protect partygoers from themselves. Unclassified party drugs like “bubble” — the local term for mephedrone — give more bang for the buck than beer, and for emergency workers the popularity of these drugs is adding an unpredictable element to weekends on call.

As one police officer observes, some visitors to Blackpool leave their brains at the end of the M55.

About this programme

1/10. To mark the 75th anniversary of the 999 system in the UK, this documentary series follows Blackpool's emergency services. The entire process is captured, from the moment a call is taken at the control centres to the deployment of the police, ambulance teams and fire crews, following them to the front line as they deal with the unpredictable, the shocking and the sometimes disturbing. In the first programme, they tackle the fallout from the dizzying array of so-called `party drugs' on the rise across the country. Other calls relate to a man exposing himself at a railway station, violent hospital patients and a pair of naked squaddies whose R&R has got a little out of hand.